


Fireflies

by luthorzorel



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: F/F, Wayhaught - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:08:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25451401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luthorzorel/pseuds/luthorzorel
Summary: Eighteen year old Nicole Haught is horrified when her mother moves her from New York City to Purgatory to stay with her grandmother for her last summer before college. She hates the small town with its lack of people and places to spend time in. She is convinced that this will be the worst summer of her life until she meets Waverly Earp, her grandmother's next door neighbor, and suddenly, Purgatory doesn't seem so bad.
Relationships: Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught
Comments: 16
Kudos: 224





	1. Chapter 1

Nicole couldn’t help but resent her mother as she stared out the window from the passenger seat. The endless nothing that they had been passing for hours now only made it worse; she really, really hated everything right now. She understood that her grandmother wasn’t doing well, understood that her mother needed to stay with her for the time being, but she didn’t understand why she had been forced to come along.  
Leaving the city during her last summer before college felt like the ultimate betrayal. Nicole had thought about this summer for years, her last chance to make memories with the friends she would probably lose when they went their separate ways. Not only was she already missing her friends, she hated the absence of anything city-esque around her. She had visited Purgatory before, when she was very little, but she remembered nothing except for her grandmother’s chocolate chip cookies. Now, taking in the scenery, she realized that the small town her mother had grown up in was absolutely nothing like Manhattan. It almost made her sympathize with her mother; maybe growing up in such a boring place had eventually driven her crazy. Maybe Purgatory and it’s lack of anything resembling human life was the reason she was so focused on her work she barely had time to look at her daughter. At this point, Nicole wasn’t even sure if her mother even knew what her only child looked like.  
In her opinion, Nicole was far past the point of being able to take care of herself. Of course the one time her mother wanted to be a mother had to involve upending what to her was her entire life. The screaming matches had been epic, she was sure she had burst at least a few blood vessels in her face with the sheer strength of her adamant protest. It didn’t matter, she had no choice. If she wanted someone to support her financially through university, she had no choice but to appease her mother. Even when it meant spending three months in what she was quickly coming to consider the most boring place on Earth.   
Taking in every detail of her surroundings that she possibly could, Nicole took a deep and defeated breath. There was nothing she could do about the situation anymore, they were already pulling into her grandmother’s driveway.   
“Here we are,” said her mother, turning the keys in the ignition and silencing the engine, the only present sound that even vaguely reminded Nicole of home.   
“Lovely.”   
The teenager caught her mother’s eye as she muttered facetiously under her breath; nothing about this was lovely. In fact, she had begun to call it her own personal hell. Clearly there was a reason why this town was named after the grey space between Heaven and Hell. If she believed in that kind of thing, Nicole would’ve sworn that this Purgatory was worse than its namesake.  
“Help me with the luggage, Nicole.” Her mother had already stepped out of the car and popped the trunk. Nicole couldn’t imagine what she was so eager to get to, they were in a town that didn’t even have its own gas station.  
Rolling her eyes and cursing under her breath, Nicole stumbled into the muggy air and begrudgingly took a suitcase from her mother. Dragging it up the front steps, she went to knock on the door, but before her hand even hit the hardwood it swung open.  
To her surprise, it wasn’t her grandmother who had opened the door but a girl with long brown hair and big, soft eyes who looked closer to her age than anyone she had seen on the drive through town. Unsure of what to say or do, Nicole stood dumbfounded for a moment.   
“Hi, I’m Waverly!” the girl said, extending a hand that supported thin fingers laden with rings. “Waverly Earp,” she clarified, smiling like there was nothing at all strange about the situation. Like she wasn’t in an 86 year old woman’s house on a Friday afternoon in the summer.   
“Nicole,” the redhead stuttered, standing unnaturally still in front of the threshold. “Haught,” she added, though she had a feeling that this girl already knew that.  
“Your grandmother told me you’d be coming soon!” The brunette smiled, eyes sparkling with genuine excitement. Her enthusiasm almost made Nicole want to smile too, but she quickly remembered that she hated it here, that under no circumstances will she find anything good about this hellhole her grandmother calls home. “Here, let me take that.”  
Before Nicole could protest the shorter girl had taken possession of the overfilled suitcase, dragging it gracefully down the hallway. Unsure of what to do, Nicole decided to follow her. She felt like an intruder just walking in, though she knew she would have to get used to it. This was home, at least for the next 90 days. Might as well get used to it.  
It felt unnatural to follow this girl she didn’t know through her own grandmother’s eerily quiet house, but her feet moved for her without much attention to the mess of questions swimming through her mind.   
Hearing what must have been her mother closing and locking the front door, Nicole snapped out of the semi trance she had entered and stopped in the middle of the doorway she had been about to walk through.  
“Sorry, who are you again? How do you know my grandma?” Nicole knew the second she said it that she had been rude, not in the context of the message but in her delivery. She was in a bad mood and it showed, her voice was short and unimpressed.  
“I’m Waverly,” she said again. “I live next door. I visit your grandma everyday after school and help her out around the house.” She said this as though it was a casual thing, as though any teenage girl would spend her afternoons with her elderly next door neighbor.  
Nicole couldn’t help but wonder if she was getting paid at least a small sum for said visits. Her grandmother wasn’t exactly the nicest person, and it had only gotten worse since she had become sick. Nicole hated calling her, she always had something to say about how Nicole could be a better daughter, how she would be going to Columbia in the fall had she only taken her studies seriously.   
“Oh.”  
Nicole knew she was being rude, but the sound of her mother approaching and all the resentments she held toward her family were spoiling her mood more and more by the minute. She wanted nothing more than to go to her room, wherever that was, and cry. The drive with her mother had been exhausting; she already missed her bed at home, the view from her window over the never ceasing lights of the city.  
“Nicole, help with this bag.” Her mother had caught up to the two girls, lugging two large duffel bags behind her.   
Grateful to take her mind off of her frustrations, Nicole wrapped her fingers around the handle of the bag and continued to follow Waverly. She almost ran straight into the brunette when she stopped in front of a closed door, getting so close she could smell her strawberry shampoo.  
“She might be sleeping again,” Waverly said quietly, looking knowingly from Nicole to her Mother. “I’m Waverly Earp, by the way. I live next door. Nice to meet you, Ms. Haught.”  
The two exchanged pleasantries while Nicole’s fingers grew more and more numb with every passing second, the straps of the duffel digging into her skin, cutting off her circulation like a tourniquet.   
Knocking softly, the three entered the room. It was dimly lit and warm, the air stale. Nicole thought that it smelled like sadness, like a life that had been caged. She saw the array of orange and white bottles that crowded the dresser top first, then the chair positioned carefully next to the bed. Her grandmother was the last detail she noticed.  
Nicole hadn’t seen her in years, but she swore she looked infinitely smaller since they last hugged. Sure, they talked on the phone, kept in touch just enough to have what Nicole assumed was supposed to be a good relationship, but she hadn’t seen her in the physical sense in years. It surprised her how fragile she looked, the woman who had always scared her with her rigid rules and punishments.  
It made more sense to her now why Waverly spent time here so often, why they had essentially moved to Purgatory for the time being.  
Her grandmother was sick, but she wasn’t just the painful kind that took your physical strength and energy. She was drained, almost entirely helpless. The dull look in her eyes made this obvious; there was no question that she needed people to care for her. Nicole almost felt guilty for her adamant hatred of the town.   
“Maggie,” Waverly said softly, leaning down so that she was close enough to touch the old woman. “Samantha and Nicole are here.”   
Stirring as though she hadn’t noticed them until this announcement, Nicole’s grandmother Margaret looked from daughter to granddaughter, eyes moving ambiguously.   
“Samantha, I expected you to call when you were an hour away. You know it’s rude to show up unannounced.  
Nicole saw her mother’s jaw set tightly from the corner of her eye; she had called Margaret twice to tell her their ETA and had gone to voicemail both times.  
“And Nicole, darling. You look tired, have you been eating?”   
Nicole blushed at this, making awkward eye contact with Waverly and shifting quickly to a staring contest with the carpet.  
Shifting in bed so that she was almost sitting up, Margaret looked from the brunette to the redhead, eyes showing just a hint more of life than they had been previously.   
“I see you’ve met Waverly. The most lovely girl, she’s been the biggest help to me since all of this started.” Nicole looked shamefully down at her feet. She had been neglecting to call her grandmother, and here was someone her age who was taking better care of her than she had ever even considered. “Waverly’s 18, Nicole. I’m sure you two will get along fine. Maybe you can help her get settled while I talk to my daughter.”  
Her tone of voice told the girls that it was time for them to exit the room, time for the adults to talk and the kids to pretend like they didn’t have a clue as to what was going on.  
Slowly, Nicole shut the door behind her and followed Waverly silently to a closed door down the hall.  
It better at least have a closet, Nicole thought as the other girl opened the door.  
As she had expected, her bedroom for the time being was actually much bigger than the glorified closet she slept in at home. Their apartment in the city may not have been very big, but it was one of her favorite places in the world.   
Looking around the white room, Nicole felt awkward and out of place.  
She hadn’t expected to meet anyone her own age the entire time she was in Purgatory, much less someone who had an actual relationship with her grandmother. The redhead felt almost guilty, this random girl had done more for her only grandmother than she ever had. Nicole almost regretted all of the horrible things she had thought about Purgatory and her own mother for dragging her here, but reminded herself that nothing could make this place any better. She was still going to be bored. She was still going to miss her friends and her life in New York.   
Waverly cleared her throat and Nicole flinched; she had completely forgotten that she wasn’t alone.   
“I hope you don’t mind me being here,” the brunette bit her lip and looked shyly at the ground. “I was going to leave before you got here but I lost track of time. I’ll leave if you’re all settled.”  
Nicole suddenly felt bad for her unwarranted hostility towards the girl. She had no idea who this Waverly was, but by all accounts she seemed to be a decent person. Only a decent person would willingly spend time with her grandmother.   
“No, no,” Nicole stuttered slightly, blushing and trying not to meet Waverly’s eyes. “You’re fine. I’m sorry if I’ve seemed like a bitch.” At this the brunette laughed, a genuine, almost sparkly type of laugh that Nicole hadn’t heard in a long time. “I’m pissed at my mom for making me spend the summer here.”   
The two girls both visibly relaxed, Nicole sitting on the corner of her neatly made bed, Waverly sinking to the floor on crossed legs.   
“You weren’t a bitch, don’t worry.” Waverly was still smiling, the remnants of her laugh still lighting up her face. “Purgatory isn’t exactly where anyone would want to vacation. You’re from New York City, right?”   
“Manhattan, yeah. Is it always this boring here?”  
Nicole hadn’t noticed her shoulders relax, her body free of the resentment and anger she had so desperately been clinging to.   
“I wish I could say no.” Biting her lip again, Waverly looked from the spot on the ground that she had been eyeing up to the other girl, smiling. “There are a few other kids our age,” she continued. “I was homeschooled so I’m not close with most of them, but Rosita is pretty cool. Their graduating class was 37 people, I think.”  
Nicole couldn’t help but let her jaw drop, mouth hanging open dramatically.  
“37?”   
She said it as though Waverly had just told her that she was actually an alien who could fly.  
“Yup.” Waverly laughed. “Welcome to Purgatory.”  
Nicole joined her, nervous laughter turning genuine as the two girls got to know each other. Waverly learned that Nicole’s graduating class had been 450 students, that they had actually had a real prom with corsages and everything, that for the most part, people took the subway instead of driving. Nicole was the first person Waverly had ever met who came from a big city. Everything about her and her life intrigued her.  
Nicole discovered that Waverly was the youngest of three daughters, Willa and Wynonna being her older sisters. She was closer to Wynonna and rarely saw Willa, who had moved out of the family house and to a neighboring town with slightly more people, slightly more action. She lived with her mother; her dad was also dead. Both girls had been young when it happened, too young to remember much about anything. They felt guilty that they weren’t as affected by this absence as they thought they should be, but they couldn't change what had happened.  
By the time Samantha knocked on the door to ask Nicole if she was hungry for dinner, they were sitting inches apart on the bed, smiling and laughing as though they had known each other their entire lives.   
“I’m glad you girls are getting along!” Nicole couldn’t help but roll her eyes; her newfound friendship didn’t change the fact that she hated her mother right now.  
“What’s up, Mom?”  
“Your grandmother’s sleeping. I was thinking I could cook some spaghetti for dinner, I know it’s your favorite.” She looked knowingly at Nicole, who again rolled her eyes.   
Waverly noticed and squeezed her hand. Nicole had made it clear that her relationship with her mother wasn’t one she couldn’t live without.  
“Waverly, would you like to stay for dinner?”  
The brunette locked eyes with Nicole, who gave the tiniest nod of her head, a pleading look in her eyes. Smiling, she turned.  
“I’d love to, Mrs. Haught. Thank you for inviting me.”   
Dinner went quickly, the girls sneaking mischievous glances at each other every few minutes. Nicole didn’t think she had ever connected with someone so quickly. She felt like she had known Waverly forever, the type of friendship where everything is just one inside joke, just for the two of them. She couldn’t help thinking that maybe this summer wouldn’t be as awful as she’d anticipated.  
When they were satisfactorily full and the dishes had been washed and put away (Waverly insisted on helping), the girls went outside, the air hot and dry, the sky darkening by the minute. Nicole hadn’t realized how late it had gotten, time had passed so quickly.  
“I should probably go home soon,” said Waverly dismally, and Nicole could tell she was genuinely upset to leave, even though their houses were less than 20 feet apart.   
“Yeah.”  
Nicole was quiet, remembering that with the absence of her new friend she’d be stuck once again inside her miserable head. She was surprised at how much she didn’t want Waverly to leave. They had only known each other a few hours, yet Nicole knew they would be best friends. She could confidently say that she had never met anyone like Waverly.  
“Do you want to go into town tomorrow? I can show you all the best spots in Purgatory. I have a lot of hiding places.”  
But Nicole wasn’t paying attention. Her eyes appeared unfocused as she stared fixedly into the front yard. Waverly watched her curiously, jumping when the other girl suddenly gasped.  
“What?”   
“I think I saw a firefly!”  
Laughing, Waverly looked curiously at the girl with whom she was sitting shoulder to shoulder.  
“Yeah? They’re out here every night.”  
Nicole looked incredulous, jumping again to point at a tiny burst of light breaking through the darkness.  
“I’ve never seen them in real life before,” she whispered, in awe of the magic she was witnessing. “They’re beautiful.”  
Waverly was quiet for a moment, looking at Nicole who was still enthralled with the lightning bugs. She couldn’t help but feel that she was witnessing something special, a child like innocence she hadn’t expected from the hardened 18 year old. She smiled and found that she couldn’t look away. Something about Nicole was different, special. The warmth in her chest and stomach travelled to her cheeks and she looked away, realizing she had been staring.  
“You’ve really never seen fireflies before?”   
Waverly broke the silence, looking again at Nicole.  
“Never,” she said almost breathlessly. “They’re so cool.”  
“They are pretty wonderful.” Waverly once again found her eyes drawn to the tall redhead sitting beside her. Pulling them away, she realized that it was getting late and she needed to be home.  
“It was really nice meeting you Nicole. I’ll see you tomorrow?” They agreed on a time and hugged goodbye, Waverly walking unnaturally slow to her own house.  
Her mother greeted her at the door.  
“I saw you with Maggie’s granddaughter outside. How are you two getting along? New York to Purgatory is a big adjustment.”  
Waverly grinned at the mention of her new friend.   
“Yeah, we’re getting along really well. She seems cool, I really want to be friends with her. I’m taking her downtown tomorrow.” She didn’t realize that she was talking faster than usual, her heart pounding in her chest.   
Up in her own bedroom, Waverly moved to close her curtains when she saw Nicole still sitting on the front steps, head moving back and forth with every moving lantern she saw. She didn’t know why, but she felt close to the new girl, wanting nothing more than to know more about her. Not realizing she was watching, Waverly bit her bottom lip as the girl below watched the fireflies sprinkle their starlight through the air.


	2. Hide and Seek

Nicole didn’t know why she was so nervous to spend the day with Waverly, but the hot tightness in her chest made her rethink everything she did. She had already changed her outfit three times, even though she had been wearing her oldest grey sweatpants and a The New School sweatshirt in front of her new friend less than twelve hours prior.   
She could’ve sworn that her hands shook a little as she applied a coat of mascara to her eyelashes. Nicole didn’t normally wear makeup, and when she did it pretty much boiled down to some mascara and blush. She knew she didn’t need anyone’s approval but for some reason she was nervous about what Waverly would think.   
She finally decided on a pair of ripped, baggy black jeans that hung loose around her calves, a big t-shirt that had belonged to her father, and her favorite pair of black boots, platform with yellow laces. Leaving her hair natural and her bedroom floor looking like a tornado of clothing had spun through, she closed her bedroom door behind her and went to kiss her grandmother goodbye.   
Taking a deep breath, she said goodbye to her mother. She didn’t know what she was so worried about; it was just Waverly. They barely knew each other, she didn’t have any expectations to live up to.  
Outside, Waverly was idling in an old fashioned red jeep, all the windows down and music Nicole hadn’t heard before making its way into the cool morning air. Seeing Nicole, the brunette jumped up in her seat and called over the music.  
“Hi! Are you ready for the Waverly Earp Grand Tour of Purgatory?” She smiled brightly, her long brown hair falling in waves around her face. Nicole couldn’t help but notice how tan her stomach was, how faint lines of definition on her abs moved with her as she turned towards the redhead.   
“Never been more ready for anything in my life,” Nicole answered sarcastically.   
Waverly giggled and Nicole could’ve sworn she saw her eyes shift up and down over her. Blinking, she smiled back. Waverly wasn’t checking her out, there was no way.   
Opening the car door, she slid into the passenger seat beside her new friend, hoping that her shaking hands would steady before anyone noticed.   
“I love your outfit!” Waverly’s eyes met Nicole’s and sparkled. “You look hot.”   
She winked and shifted the car into drive, beginning to pull out of their secluded street.   
Had she not already been thinking about how good Waverly looked, the comment probably would have caused her mouth to drop open. Her tongue felt dry, her heart hammering behind her ribs.   
“Thanks,” she finally managed to choke out, after several dazed seconds. “You don’t look too bad yourself.”  
This was the understatement of the year, at least in Nicole’s opinion. Waverly was wearing tight denim shorts that hugged her hips like they had been made just for her and a red top that ended a couple inches before her belly button. She had eyeshadow on, iridescent glitter that sparkled in the sun and made her bright eyes even sunnier.   
Waverly laughed, turning her eyes back to the road. The wind blew her hair so that it flowed dramatically behind her, like a scene from a movie where they had actually been holding an expertly angled fan towards the face of the actress. Nicole couldn’t help but wonder how anyone could look like that, how anyone could be that perfect.  
As they drove, they fell into the same comfortable chatter they had experienced yesterday, old friends catching up like no time at all had passed. Neither girl had felt so comfortable with someone so quickly for as long as they could remember.  
Waverly took the long way, winding through back roads and pointing out houses to Nicole. By the time they got to town Nicole had gotten a tour of the entirety of Purgatory, not that there was that much to see.   
Purgatory’s “downtown” wasn’t so much of a downtown as a sad collection of run down shops that looked like they hadn’t been open in years, and a morose looking bar. It had the name “Shorty’s” written in fading letters across the front, and Nicole could guess it was probably the most popular place in town. Though, it didn’t really mean much to be the most popular place in a town like Purgatory.   
Waverly parked in front of an antique store that had a faded ‘Closed’ sign hung in its window. Putting the car in park, she stretched out her arms as if presenting Nicole with a rare and magnificent sight.  
“This,” she started dramatically, “is downtown Purgatory. That right there is the general store,” pointing to another building that looked in desperate need of repair, “and that is Shorty’s, where everyone who doesn’t get out of here eventually goes to drink themselves to death.”  
Nicole couldn’t tell if Waverly was joking or not about Shorty’s, though from the serious look on her face she guessed that it was the latter.   
“So you’re telling me this isn’t the most popular vacation site in the world? People are really missing out on all of this.”  
Waverly rolled her eyes playfully at Nicole’s typical sarcasm, throwing the car door open and stepping out onto the dusty ground. Nicole followed suit.   
“Okay.”   
“Okay?”  
“I think I’m ready to show you my first hiding place. You need some good ones here in Purgatory. Everyone knows everything and everyone.” Waverly smiled mischievously.   
“Do tell, then.”   
Nicole’s anxiety had quickly melted into a sense of ease she hadn’t felt with many, if any, people besides Waverly. She even felt a little bit of genuine excitement, something she hadn’t expected to experience throughout her entire stay.   
“Follow me.”  
Waverly locked the car and motioned to Nicole to follow her. Nicole wasn’t sure where they could possibly be going; everything seemed to be exposed to the public eye, if you for some reason wanted to look.   
Following closely behind, Nicole turned with Waverly towards the back of a shop that appeared to be a used bookstore. It also looked like nobody had bought a book from it in decades, which Nicole wouldn’t doubt given the circumstances. They came to a stop in front of a backdoor that had a large and blatant ‘NO TRESPASSING’ sign nailed to the middle. Hesitating, the taller of the two looked around to make sure they were alone. It seemed that the back alleys were completely deserted, with no sign of the quiet stirring Nicole had viewed outside of Shorty’s and the general store.  
“This isn’t some elaborate plan to get me arrested, is it?” Nicole joked, worried that she was going to get in trouble with the police on her first full day in town. Her mother would be thrilled to see her daughter arrive at the front door accompanied by a sheriff.   
“Of course not, weirdo,” Waverly laughed, reaching into a small green backpack that Nicole hadn’t noticed she was carrying. “I have a key.”  
Her eyes sparkled and Nicole couldn’t speak for a moment.  
A quiet ‘how?’ was all she was able to get out.   
“I’ll explain when we get inside.”  
Turning the small gold key in the rusted lock, Waverly slowly swung open the door. Nicole was surprised it didn’t break in half just from that, given the state of it. She cringed at how loudly it creaked as they stepped through the threshold, Waverly closing and locking the door behind them.   
“Welcome to the cave.” She smiled brightly, looking eagerly to the redhead.   
“Is this place even still open?” Nicole was thoroughly confused and equally impressed; Waverly hadn’t struck her as a badass.   
“It’s kind of a long story. I worked here for a while, three summers actually, for the owner, Mr. Manor. I loved it so much. The most interesting people used to come in, I think this was the only place I ever considered special about Purgatory. People can talk about books for hours, and used books carry so much more than the ones that come fresh off the shelf. It’s almost like you can feel the presence of the people who owned them before you, feel what the stories did for them. I miss it a lot.” For the first time, Nicole saw Waverly look sad. Her eyes were focused on a particularly dusty spot on the floor and her eyebrows were drawn close together as she frowned.   
“What happened?” Nicole knew her voice sounded small, anxious.  
“Mr. Manor died two years ago. He had no family here except a daughter, Eliza. She moved away from Purgatory a few months before her father passed. It was unexpected,” she paused. “Heart attack. It happened here actually. I was there.” Her voice sounded thick.  
“They basically didn’t know what to do with the place. He had left it to his daughter but nobody knew how to reach her, so they never ended up figuring out what to do. Legally, the place is paid off, it has been for years. His daughter is the rightful owner, so she’s the only one who can make any actual decisions about it. It’s been closed ever since.”   
“And you have the only key.”  
“And I have the only key,” Waverly echoed. “It’s kind of become a sort of solace for me. I don’t know.” She shrugged.  
“I like it,” Nicole didn’t know what to say; she was too busy looking at the piles of books stacked everywhere, the precarious yet organized way in which an entire universe of fictional worlds lay out for them to explore.  
“Come on, let’s go downstairs. Nobody can see us through the windows there.”  
Once again, Nicole found herself following Waverly, down a back staircase that was riddled with cobwebs and smelled like stale air.   
The moment they got downstairs Nicole could tell that the space belonged to Waverly. It smelled like lavender and strawberries and a hint of something Nicole couldn’t place. There was a white bean bag chair on top of a fluffy orange rug on the ground, next to a small bookshelf filled to capacity with all kinds of books. Nicole caught sight of a Sylvia Plath, some psychology books, a visibly old Nancy Drew mystery that couldn’t be less than 50 years old. There were colorful tapestries hung on each wall and the ceiling, and Nicole could see several candles through the dim lighting.  
“Wow,” she whispered.  
“I love it down here.” Waverly sighed.  
“It’s so nice.”  
Waverly motioned for Nicole to sit and began to light the candles so that the basement was illuminated by the soft glow of the small, flickering flames. They must have been scented because Nicole noticed the floral smells getting stronger, making her feel like she was somewhere almost luxurious. Waverly was right about it down here. It was perfect, it was quiet, it was beautiful, but most importantly it wasn’t Purgatory. The tapestry hung walls acted as barriers to the outside world; Purgatory did not exist while they were in here.   
Smiling, Waverly reached into her backpack then paused.  
“Hey Nicole?”  
“Yeah?” Nicole was still enraptured by her surroundings, barely hearing Waverly call her name.  
“Have you ever smoked weed?”  
The question snapped Nicole back to reality, plunging her out of the fantasy world she had entered for just a moment.   
“A couple times, yeah.”   
She was telling the truth, she had smoked a few joints in the past couple years but had always been too paranoid of getting caught by her mother to really get into it. Her friends got high together often, and she was usually the sober one there to drive and make sure nobody did anything too stupid.   
“How would you feel about smoking a little with me?” Waverly’s eyes were playful, a half smile dancing on her lips.  
“Like right now?”  
“Like right now.”  
“I’m not opposed to the idea,” she responded, a smile now playing across her own lips, her own eyes alight with rebellion. Who cared what her mother thought? She would do anything to make Purgatory less tortuous, to take her mind off of home.   
“Cool, because Wynonna gave me this joint to ‘loosen me up’ or whatever bullshit she said, and I didn’t want to smoke it alone. I would’ve asked Rosita but she has enough of her own and I don’t really like being around her when she’s high.”  
Waverly trailed off, realizing she was rambling and telling Nicole too much of her personal life for their second day as friends. Reaching back into her bag, she pulled out a pre-rolled joint and the same purple lighter she had used to light the candles.   
She smirked at Nicole who shot her knowing a look back.  
“Here, you start it. A welcome to Purgatory gift.”  
Waverly sat cross legged across from Nicole, holding out the joint for her to take.  
“It’s yours, you should start it. Isn’t that bad luck or something?” Nicole’s eyebrows creased as she accepted the tightly rolled cylinder.  
“How about you start it, I light it?” Waverly rolled her eyes playfully and held out the lighter to her mouth where she had placed the joint between her lips.  
Nicole couldn’t help but notice how fast her heart beat in her chest as Waverly leaned closer to her and lit the joint, her eyes looking particularly green in the dim candlelight. Inhaling, Nicole took her first hit and to her surprise and relief, didn’t cough. She took one more before passing it to Waverly.   
“I kind of hate drugs, you know.” Waverly commented quietly after taking a few hits herself and passing it back to the girl across from her. “At least, I guess what I mean is I hate what they do to people and what people will do for them.” Her eyes moved back and forth around the room, anywhere but into Nicole’s.  
“I know what you mean,” Nicole said softly. “My friends joke about it all the time, about how fun they are, to the point where I think they forget there’s any danger. They convince themselves that nothing bad can or will happen to them.”  
Waverly met Nicole’s eyes again, nodding as she inhaled the smoke into her lungs.   
“My dad died of alcoholism, so it’s something I think about a lot,” she says casually, as though it just slipped out without any thought. She didn’t know why she had said it, it wasn’t exactly the sort of small talk you make over a joint, especially with a girl you’re trying to befriend. Worried that she had said too much and made the situation awkward, Waverly shook her head as if gathering herself and then whispered, “Sorry, that was weird.”  
Nicole was high, she could tell, maybe too high to be having this conversation, but she knew she needed to say something.  
“I don’t think it was weird,” she said quietly. Suddenly Waverly’s comment about Shorty’s made a lot more sense. “My dad was one too, he died of liver failure after years of promising to quit.” Nicole wasn’t going to share this but she felt so safe around Waverly that the words formed naturally and she didn’t feel scared saying them.   
“Wow,” Waverly muttered. “We have even more in common than I thought.” She smiled, a sad smile that didn’t cause her eyes to sparkle like the fireflies Nicole had seen the night before, but left them dull, empty. “I didn’t know him, but Willa and Wynonna did. They saw how he was, who he was, when he was drinking. Sometimes I’m scared Wynonna will end up exactly the same, the way she smokes and drinks now. I know we’re at the age where we’re supposed to party, but I worry about her. Nothing can happen to her,” she added fiercely, as though letting whoever has control over such matters know that she, Waverly Earp, would not allow such a thing to happen.   
“I worry about if I’m going to be like that all the time, every time my friends hand me a drink at a party or my mom lets me have a sip of her wine. I worry that that’s going to be the one that causes me to pick up and never put down.”   
Waverly nodded, ashing the end of the joint in a heart shaped ashtray that must have been her sister’s.   
“Exactly,” she said. “It’s like you can read my mind or something.”  
She laughed, and suddenly Nicole was laughing too, and before they knew it tears were streaming down their faces and they were clutching their sides from laughing so hard. Nicole couldn’t remember when the last time she had laughed this hard was. She knew that it was the weed, that she was high and everything is funny when you’re high, but part of her felt like it was Waverly too.   
Like this girl she had just met had already begun to change her life for the better as she watched it happen before her eyes.


	3. Whiskey and Wynonna

Nicole knew she liked girls when she was 14. She had always thought that there must be something wrong with her because she didn’t care about boys the way all of her friends did. Everyone was having their first kisses and getting into relationships every other week, but Nicole had no interest. She knew that boys had liked her, she’d even tried to go along with it a few times, but it never felt anything but uncomfortable. She couldn’t help but think that there was something wrong with her.   
When she was in second grade, she had a best friend named Jaimie. They were inseparable, having playdates every weekend and begging their mothers to let the other sleepover when the time came for her to leave. Jaimie and Nicole told their mothers that they wanted to marry each other, and Nicole even felt that she had a crush, a real one for the first time in her life. Their mothers thought they were joking or playing a game of house, but Nicole had truly believed they were going to get married. Looking back, she’s sure that the little blonde girl from the playground had been her first crush.  
When she was in eighth grade, Nicole started to question if the way she obsessed and fawned over female celebrities was normal. Just because she didn’t gawk at the same male celebrities as her friends didn’t mean she was gay. There was no way she could be gay. She would have known by now if that were the case, and besides, she had never even liked a girl. You had to actually like a girl to be gay, right?  
Then, her second semester of eighth grade, right after she had turned 14, a new girl from Boston transferred to their middle school. Her name was Violet and she had big, sad, beautiful brown eyes that drew attention away from the rest of her face, though this didn’t distract Nicole, who could find no flaws in her soft skin, her warm smile and dimples that only appeared when she laughed.   
She kept finding herself thinking about Violet and how much she wanted to be her best friend, or maybe it was how much she wanted to be her. She couldn’t place the feeling until one day she was talking to her cousin about the girl and her dream filled eyes.  
“Nicole, do you have a crush on this Violet girl?”  
“What?? No- I- no of course not. I just like being her friend is all.”  
Nicole could feel the heat rushing from her heart to her cheeks and knew her ears must be firetruck red, but she couldn’t meet her cousin’s eye.  
“Okay, just something to think about. You get really happy when you talk about her, you basically light up.”  
The more she thought about it, Nicole really did have a crush on Violet. She thought about holding her hand and kissing her forehead while they watched movies together, and whenever Violet’s hand brushed over hers or she laid her head softly on Nicole’s shoulder, she swore the butterflies in her stomach were doing a tap dance.  
One night at a sleepover, Violet asked Nicole if she had ever kissed a girl, or thought about kissing a girl. Nicole could feel her heart pound in her throat. She swallowed hard and told her yes, she had thought about kissing a girl before, but no, she’d never actually kissed one.  
And before she knew what was happening her lips were on Violet’s and the two were tangled together in an embrace like Nicole had never felt before. She went home with the ghost of the other girl’s lips still dancing over her own, face warm, heart beating out of her chest.  
Nicole wasn’t sure if her feelings for Waverly were more than just admiration, more than just the desire to continue being her friend.   
All she knew was that when Waverly laughed, it sounded like everything good she had ever felt, and when Waverly smiled, she could swear that the space around her began to glow like starlight. She had never met anyone like Waverly.   
After their initial outing, Nicole and Waverly spent most of their time together. Waverly was always stopping by to see the redhead’s grandmother and would often drag Nicole off to the bookstore where they sat close together in the damp heat. Nicole was glad for the dim lighting, the glow of the candlelights hid her flushed cheeks whenever Waverly leaned in to tell her something particularly important.   
One afternoon while Waverly was reading Nicole a poem out of her favorite book, Ariel by Sylvia Plath, the younger girl paused to look her friend in the eyes.   
“You know, I think it’s really cute how excited you get about the fireflies. I see you watching them sometimes at night.”  
Nicole felt her heart skip what seemed like several hundred beats and gulped. She had no idea anyone saw her during the night when she crept out the backdoor to sit and think, mesmerized by the little beings of light flashing around her.   
Pausing to catch her breath, Nicole could’ve sworn she saw Waverly blush and bite her lip. She decided it must be the flickering warmth of the candles playing tricks on her eyes.   
“I forget they’re so normal here, they’re like little aliens to me sometimes. They’re fun to watch. Kind of like shooting stars.”   
Nicole bit her lip, feeling stupid and childish.   
“They are pretty cool,” Waverly nodded. “When I was little Wynonna would catch them for me and put them in a jar, and we would sneak them into our room and watch them flicker. It felt like she was bringing me a jar of magic and placing it into my hands.”  
Feeling oddly validated, Nicole smiled and laughed, imagining a miniature Waverly and Wynonna chasing lightning bugs around their grassy backyard. She was trying her best to focus on the conversation and the girl in front of her but her mind kept wandering to one thing: Waverly had called her cute, or close enough. The thought kept her warm throughout Waverly’s recitation of “The Applicant” and through the ride home where the girls parted ways for dinner.   
Nicole and her mother usually ate dinner in Maggie’s room, keeping her company even when she wasn’t up for eating herself. Family dinners had never really been a thing for Nicole growing up, with her mom working nights and Nicole learning early on that if she wanted a sandwich from the bodega she should go early before school, and the best place to get Chinese takeout was three blocks away from their apartment. She was used to eating alone, so dinner with her mother and the grandmother she hardly knew felt foreign, awkward. Tonight, however, Maggie was asleep when the chilli her daughter had prepared very haphazardly was done simmering. Nicole eyed it suspiciously and took a bowl back to her bedroom, which made her mother scowl and the teenage girl roll her eyes in return.  
Sitting on her bed and eyeing her dinner suspiciously, the redhead’s thoughts wandered back to the girl next door, the girl who made Nicole feel things she had never felt in all 18 years of her life.   
I think it’s really cute how excited you get about the fireflies.  
She could almost see the way her green eyes lit up when she said it, biting her lip as she looked away from Nicole and down to her hands. Her hair fell over her shoulders and around her face in the most perfect way, like it was made to frame her face, and her smile made the swarm of butterflies in Nicole’s stomach migrate to her throat.  
Somewhere in between thinking about the poems Waverly had read her and the way the girl’s long eyelashes fluttered when she rolled her eyes, an image of Nicole leaning in to kiss Waverly crept into her mind. The harder she tried to make the thought go away, the clearer the daydream became, until she could almost feel Waverly’s hands cupping her face as she drifted off to sleep.  
“You can’t do this anymore Wynonna! You’re going to end up killing yourself.”  
Waverly’s voice was shrill, like she was a fraction of a second away from bursting into tears.   
“Just because Daddy couldn’t handle his liquor doesn’t suddenly condemn me to a life of boredom.”   
The older girl was taunting her, her words almost imperceptibly slurred, like someone had only just begun to erase their edges. Nicole quickly realized that she was no longer dreaming and sat up, rubbing her eyes. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, it was now dark. It must have been getting late, and her bowl of chilli sat on her nightstand, cold and neglected.   
She didn’t want to eavesdrop, but the raised voices coming from next door were hard to ignore, especially when it became clear that Waverly was now crying.   
“You’re so mean when you’re like this.” Waverly’s voice was quieter now, like she had stopped yelling, but sounded closer than before, and Nicole realized the two girls had made their way outside. “You can’t leave right now, Wynonna.”  
“In case you’ve forgotten, I’m the one that took care of you when Mom was too busy shoving pills down her throat to give a shit. You don’t get to tell me what to do.”   
Wynonna’s voice was sharp, with an edge to it that made a lump rise in Nicole’s own throat. If she was the one being yelled at like that, she would be crying too.  
Nicole wished she hadn’t woken up. She felt like she was violating her only friend’s privacy. It felt wrong to even be hearing the conversation from a distance. She felt sick, like someone had punched her in the stomach and knocked the air clean out of her. She’d never heard Waverly sound like that before. Her cries echoed in Nicole’s ears even after the screaming stopped and she heard a car pull out of the driveway and speed away.  
When it had been at least ten minutes and the muffled sounds of sobbing hadn’t ceased, Nicole crept quietly out of her bed, pulling on a pair of shoes and grabbing a blanket. Sneaking out the backdoor, cringing at the creakiness of the old hinges and praying that her mother and grandmother were fast asleep, she stepped out into the cool summer air. Night time was the only time Purgatory wasn’t sweltering; the breeze tonight was even enough to make Nicole wish she was wearing a sweatshirt.   
Not wanting to startle the girl by sneaking upon her, Nicole cleared her throat uncomfortably. Waverly’s head whipped around and her hands shot up to her eyes to wipe away the flowing tears.   
“Hey,” Nicole whispered. She stopped walking, waiting for a response. Waiting for permission to approach. “Thought you might want some company.”   
She smiled weakly, and Waverly flashed her the ghost of a smile back.  
“Hey.” Nicole had never heard Waverly’s voice so quiet, so small. “You heard all of that, didn’t you?”  
Nicole stuttered and looked at the ground, still standing a good six feet away from the girl who sat on the back steps of her house, her knees bent close to her chest.   
“It’s okay, Nicole. The walls are pretty thin, and we were being pretty loud. I’m sorry.”  
The brunette sounded embarrassed and Nicole was sure that had it not been 11 at night, she would’ve been able to see her blushing.   
“No Waves, no, it’s okay.” Flustered, Nicole took this as her opportunity to approach. Inching closer, she saw more clearly the pain on her friend’s face and felt the uncomfortable feeling rise further up her throat. “It’s okay, really. I just wanted to make sure that you were okay.”  
At this, Waverly let out a sound that seemed to be a mixture between a laugh and a sob, and buried her face in her hands, shoulders shaking.   
Sitting down next to her, Nicole put her arms around Waverly and held her, letting the silence envelope both of them. Feeling the goosebumps all over Waverly’s bare arms, Nicole placed the blanket she had brought gently over her shoulders.  
“You looked cold,” she said softly, letting her lips slide slowly over her front teeth into a tired smile.  
“She left,” Waverly said, though she didn’t seem to be addressing anyone in particular. “She’s drunk and she left, she drove away. Said she needed to go to the liquor store.” Her eyes filled with tears again, though they stared emptily into the distance. Nicole didn’t even notice the fireflies that floated over their heads, she was so caught up in the agony that was clear and fresh in Waverly’s eyes.   
“Does she do that a lot?”   
Nicole bit her tongue, feeling as though she were saying all the wrong things.   
Hand reaching up to swipe away a tear, Waverly nodded.  
“She doesn’t think she has a drinking problem. But she’s been drinking since I can remember. She says it makes her a better driver, but she only talks like that when she’s drunk. She’s a good person, Nicole.”   
This time Waverly looked directly into the other girl’s eyes, her own even bigger than usual, brightened by the tears she had shed.  
“I know, Waves. I know.” Nicole gripped her hand tightly, giving it a squeeze as if to say I hear you, you’re okay.  
“Sometimes she knows it’s a problem and sometimes she acts like I’m trying to bite her head off. There have been times when I’ve come home from school and she was passed out covered in her own vomit, or times when I’ve had to hold her up for hours so she didn’t choke on it and die.”  
Waverly’s voice shook, and Nicole saw, so did her bottom lip. She trembled like she was cold and gripped the purple blanket with her fingers, pulling it tight around her like she couldn’t get warm.  
“I’m so sorry.”   
Nicole had a lot much more to say, but she didn’t want to interrupt Waverly, didn’t want to say the wrong thing and scare the girl back inside, where she would have to cry alone.  
“It’s not your fault,” she scoffed, laughing sarcastically and kicking a rock that has rested near her foot.   
“No, it’s not, but it’s not something you should have to deal with either. You don’t deserve to have to carry all of that.”  
Waverly stared at the remaining nearby rocks as if contemplating which one to give the boot to next, quite literally.  
“I’m sorry about what she said about your mom,” Nicole added, immediately swallowing hard and regretting her choice of words.  
Waverly let out a noise that sounded like she was choking back more sobs. Like she wasn’t yet done crying but had decided she had to be.  
“It’s not like she’s wrong, or like she was lying. After our dad died my mom got prescribed some stupid fucking anxiety meds and something to help her sleep and I think that was when we lost her. She’s there, but she’s not. I think the only thing she cares about is getting high and where the next one will come from.”  
Nicole had never heard someone sound so broken, and swallowed hard to halt the tears that threatened to prick her own eyes.  
“Wynonna’s right, she did basically raise me herself most of the time, but I don’t want her to die, Nicole.”  
“I know.”  
Nicole gave her hand several more squeezes, like the pulses of a heartbeat.  
“I’m sorry you had to hear us fighting, I’m really sorry. I wish I could say it’s usually not like that but when she drinks, she gets angry and she takes it out on me.”  
Waverly chewed on her lip so hard that Nicole wouldn’t have been surprised if she drew blood.  
“You don’t have to apologize to me. Believe me, you should here the fights my mother and I have sometimes back home. You didn’t do anything wrong, and you certainly didn’t do anything I’m not used to.”  
Waverly laughed bitterly, still holding Nicole’s warm hand in her own, but the shaking had stopped.  
“I just hate that you had to hear that.”  
“Waverly,” Nicole said seriously, pulling the other girl toward her to look her directly in her shining eyes. “You did nothing wrong. I just feel terrible that you have to go through all of this alone. That’s not fair.”  
At this, Waverly began to cry again, shoulders moving up and down as tears streamed silently down her face. Nicole didn’t know what made her do it but she leaned in and brushed away the younger girl’s tears, placing a gentle kiss on her forehead.   
“I’m here, always. You can come throw rocks at my window until I wake up, I don’t care. I’m here, Waverly.”   
Sniffling, the brunette rested her head on the other’s shoulder.   
“Look,” she whispered suddenly.  
“What?” Nicole looked around, confused.  
“The fireflies,” breathed Waverly.  
Nicole’s eyes focused on the flickering lights in front of them and saw that there were at least twenty fireflies dancing through the air around them. They came close, closer than Nicole had ever seen them, like they knew the girls needed a little extra light tonight.   
“They’re beautiful,” she whispered back, wrapping her arm around Waverly’s blanketed shoulder.  
“They remind me of you.”  
Waverly’s voice was quiet, but Nicole noticed that it had stopped shaking.   
“It’s late,” she said suddenly, looking up to the stars that freckled the dark sky, as if just realizing the time. “You should go back inside, your mom might wake up and notice that you’re gone.”  
Nicole shook her head, her eyes wide and sad.   
“I don’t want to leave you.”  
Waverly smiled a sad, hollow smile at the redhead, running her hand over the other girl’s.   
“I’ll be okay,” she whispered. “I’m used to it.”  
Nicole frowned.  
“You shouldn’t have to be. I don’t want to leave you out here by yourself.” Nicole’s voice was fierce, firm.   
Waverly looked into her eyes and opened her mouth as though she wanted to say something, hesitated, then turned away from Nicole and remained silent.  
“What’s wrong?” Nicole grasped both of Waverly’s hands in hers and pulled her closer, so that the two were making direct eye contact once again.  
“Do you think I could sleep over? It’s totally fine if you don’t want me too because you didn’t get to ask your mom and it’s late and she’ll probably be mad and-”  
“Waverly, breathe. You can definitely sleep over, I’ll just write her a note explaining that you had a rough night and needed somewhere to stay, she’ll understand. My friend Alex used to show up in the middle of the night all the time needing a place to sleep.”  
Nicole brushed a piece of Waverly’s hair out of her eyes and tucked it gently behind her ear.   
“Thank you.”   
Waverly’s voice was quiet again and she appeared to be looking at just about everything but Nicole.   
“We just need to be quiet,” Nicole said softly. “I don’t want to wake up Grandma Maggie or Mom.”  
Waverly nodded in agreement and the two girls got up in sync, as though they could read the other’s mind. Making their way to the front door, Nicole put a finger in front of her lips and indicated that the two of them remain quiet, and slowly swung open the door, once again recoiling at the loud rustiness of its hinges. Tip-toeing upstairs to her bedroom, Nicole stumbled on one of the last steps and Waverly giggled, covering her mouth with both hands. Nicole was grateful for her smile, she would have fallen down the stairs completely if it meant that sad, lonely look would disappear from Waverly’s face. She would do just about anything to never again have to see her eyebrows so tightly knitted together, her eyes swollen from crying.  
Successfully making it into her room and closing the bedroom door as slowly as possible, Nicole looked from her queen bed to Waverly awkwardly. She hadn’t thought about the fact that she would have to share a bed with the girl, or if Waverly would be uncomfortable.   
“If you want, you can sleep in my bed and I can sleep on the floor, I don’t mind,” Nicole said, glad that it was dark enough to hide her glowing, hot face. “I mean, if you don’t mind sleeping together, I mean, sharing the bed.”  
Waverly laughed again, finding it cute that Nicole was so flustered at the thought of the two of them falling asleep so close together, and found herself blushing and staring very hard at the stitching pattern on the carpet.  
“Oh no, I don’t mind at all, as long as you don’t.”  
Nicole smiled and sighed, sounding very much relieved that her flustered attempt to conversate had gone unnoticed, or at least Waverly had done her the courtesy of acting as so.   
“You can borrow some pajamas, I have way too many.”  
“Okay.” Waverly was smiling again, her eyes moving around the room to examine the few decorations Nicole had managed to put up. There was a poster of an outline of the city and a few vinyl records taped to the wall, though she couldn’t locate an actual record player.   
Once the two girls were dressed, Nicole having stared furiously at the wall with her back turned to Waverly as she changed, they climbed into bed.  
“Thank you for coming to check on me,” Waverly said quietly.   
She was laying on her side facing Nicole, so that their faces were mere inches apart and she could see her eyes through the darkness.  
“Of course. I couldn’t leave you alone out there knowing you needed company. You can call me anytime Waverly, you know that right?”  
Nodding, the younger girl inched closer to Nicole, moving so that her head was resting on the other girl’s shoulder, and Nicole hoped that she couldn’t feel her heart beating out of her chest.   
Before she could say anything else, Waverly’s breaths had evened out and her head grew heavier on Nicole’s chest. She was asleep.  
Awake, mind moving faster than it had ever moved before, Nicole lay wondering how she had been so lucky to find a girl like Waverly in a place like Purgatory.   
It was a long time before her heartbeat settled down enough to allow her to fall asleep, Waverly’s arm still resting on her stomach, head still buried in her collarbone.


	4. Home

Nicole thought she was dreaming when she woke up with Waverly Earp asleep in her bed. Not only asleep in her bed, but with an arm draped over her stomach and her head on Nicole’s chest. She didn’t want to move in fear of waking Waverly up and breaking the spell she had woken up enchanted by.  
She found it difficult to keep her breathing even with Waverly’s head so close to her fast beating heart. She was almost certain the intensity of her heartbeat would alone be enough to wake the sleeping girl and take away the magic. Trying desperately to steady her breath, she stared at the ceiling in awe, counting the cracks and the grooves to ground herself.  
Waverly stirred and mumbled something unintelligible and Nicole felt her heartbeat pick up again. If she’d been in denial about it before, she definitely wasn’t anymore. She liked Waverly Earp. Really, really liked her.  
Laying there with her felt too good to be true, like someone had picked her up and dropped her into a fantasy filled with everything good she could possibly feel.  
Waverly was sunshine, light, beauty. She found good in the world even when there was hardly any to see and in turn made the world good for those around her. She put stars in the sky on cloudy nights, and she made Nicole feel like she had someone in Purgatory who wasn’t related to her by blood who actually cared about what happened to her.  
It was a while before Waverly woke up, eyes swollen from last night’s tears, throat raw from crying.  
“Hey,” Nicole said softly, brushing the hair out of her own eyes as Waverly sat up and gathered her bearings.  
“Hi.”  
Waverly’s voice was small, maybe even smaller than it had sounded last night, and it made Nicole’s stomach hurt, like something inside of her was twisting.  
“I’m sorry about last night. Thank you for letting me sleep over, it means a lot. You’re one of a kind, Haught.”  
She elbowed Nicole playfully and stretched, the oversized t-shirt she had borrowed from Nicole rising and revealing the boxers she wore underneath. Nicole felt her heart flutter and blushed.  
“Of course, you’re welcome any time.” She smiled and looked away from Waverly to the seams of her comforter the instant their eyes met; she didn’t want her to see just how happy she truly was to be waking up with the girl in her bed.  
“I want to make it up to you,” Waverly said, standing and stretching her arms above her head once more. “First, breakfast.”  
“Waves, it’s fine, really. It was nothing, you don’t have to do anything.”  
“I want to. Come on, get dressed and go ask your mom if you can come over to my house for breakfast.”  
Heart still racing, Nicole crept to her mother’s room and got permission to join the Earps for breakfast.  
“How is Waverly doing? Poor thing, is everything alright?” Samantha’s eyes showed genuine concern and for a moment, Nicole forgot that she agreed with her and felt hot jealousy rise in her chest. Her mother never asked her if she was okay or showed anywhere near as much concern for her own daughter as she had for the girl next door.  
“She’s okay. We’re hanging out today, I’ll text you after we finish breakfast.”  
“Okay honey,” her mother said absently, returning to the morning’s newspaper. “Let me know.”  
Nicole was irritated; what could possibly be so interesting in Purgatory to warrant a daily newspaper?  
Practically running back to her room, Nicole got to her doorway to see Waverly still in her dad’s old t-shirt, hair in two messy, slept in braids. She couldn’t help but think that she looked more beautiful than she ever had before.  
“She said yes.”  
Before Nicole could say anything more the girls were on their way out the door and onto Waverly’s front step, where she pulled a spare key out from inside a bird feeder they had hung up in the spring. Entering quietly, Nicole felt nervous. She didn’t know what the atmosphere would be like after the previous night’s drama.  
“I can’t cook many things, but I make a killer waffle,” Waverly said smiling, removing her shoes at the front door. Nicole followed suit.  
“My mom will sleep until noon so we don’t have to worry about her and I believe that,” she pointed towards the ceiling from which a muffled groaning sound was protruding, “would be Wynonna. She’ll want some waffles too.”  
Nicole must have looked startled to hear that Wynonna would be joining them for breakfast because Waverly laughed and said, “Don’t worry, she doesn’t bite. She’s just hungover and probably regretting something or other.”  
Laughing nervously, Nicole followed Waverly into a kitchen. The walls were pink, which surprised her but at the same time made some strange sort of sense.  
“Sit,” Waverly motioned, patting the countertop near the stove.  
Nicole pushed herself up by her arms and sat on the counter, her feet dangling and brushing against Waverly’s knees. Waverly, who was pulling on an apron that said ‘Best Cook In Purgatory,’ smiled at her and began to remove different ingredients from the cabinets and fridge, finally placing an old looking waffle maker next to Nicole on the counter.  
Just as Waverly was pouring the first spoonfuls on batter into the now hot waffle maker, a girl who appeared to be in her mid twenties with long, dark brown hair that fell like Waverly’s, as though it had just been blown out by a very expensive hairdresser. She looked tired, eyes bloodshot and face clearly paler than it normally would have been. Despite her disheveled appearance, Nicole could tell she was beautiful.  
It must run in the family, she thought.  
“Hey peanut,” she said, walking over to Waverly and wrapping an arm around her shoulders from behind, like the events of the night before had never taken place. “Hi, you must be Nicole. I’ve heard a lot about you.”  
At this, both girls blushed fiercely and began equally intense staring contests with the patterned tile floor.  
“Shut up, Wynonna,” Waverly mumbled under her breath.  
“Yeah, hi, I’m Nicole,” the redhead replied once she had caught her breath. “I’ve heard a lot about you too, it’s nice to finally meet you.”  
The three girls made comfortable small talk and Waverly let each of them make their own waffle. There was flour on her cheek, and Nicole reached up instinctively to brush it off with her thumb.  
“Hold on, you got a little something right here.”  
She didn’t seem to notice that Waverly’s cheeks had once more gone red underneath her naturally tan skin. Wynonna, however, laughed at her sister’s obvious attraction to the girl standing in her kitchen.  
“You two should just kiss already, get it over with.”  
Both girls made eye contact which was quickly dropped, and Waverly laughed nervously.  
“Haha, Wynonna. Go project somewhere else.”  
“I can’t help it, she’s such a little lesbian sometimes,” Wynonna looked at Nicole pointedly.  
At this, Nicole felt her heartbeat flutter as it had done so many times in the past twenty-four hours. She had suspected that Waverly liked girls based on conversations they’d had over the past few weeks, but she’d never actually said it herself. If Waverly liked girls, maybe her crush wasn’t as hopeless as she’d thought.  
“Says you,” Waverly laughed, placing the last waffe onto the plate she had stacked high with them. “Where’s Rosita?”  
Wynonna stuck out her tongue at her younger sister and the three girls sat down to eat, Waverly setting aside a waffle for her mother. The longer they talked and ate, the more Nicole felt the mild resentment she’d had toward Wynonna for making Waverly so upset the previous night drifted away. She was funny, and Waverly had been right when she said she was a good person. Nicole didn’t have to spend much time with her to realize that she had the same quality as her sister that allowed them to light up every room they entered.  
Nicole and Wynonna helped Waverly clean up the little mess she had left behind and continued chatting and laughing until Nicole realized it was almost 1 in the afternoon.  
“Shit, I should probably text my mom,” she said aloud.  
“Ask her if it’s cool if you spend the rest of the afternoon with me. I want to show her our spot.”  
Waverly raised her eyebrows at Wynonna who smirked.  
“Ah, Waverly’s secret, not so secret hiding spot. That’ll be fun.” She turned to Nicole. “Do you have a swimsuit?”  
Nicole shook her head, no she didn’t have one, she hadn’t expected to need one during her hell of a summer in Purgatory.  
“You can borrow one of mine,” Wynonna said kindly, once again smiling knowingly at her sister’s friend. “Come up to my room, you can see which one you like. Waves, I promise I won’t corrupt her,” she said after a sharp look from Waverly.  
Nicole followed the brunette up the stairs, feeling slightly nervous to be alone with Waverly’s older sister when Waverly wasn’t present. It felt strange, especially after the fight she had heard between the sisters. She once again felt like she was violating some private circle that she had no right to be a part of.  
Wynonna’s room was dark and it took Nicole a moment to realize it was because she had blackout curtains on the windows. Strips of LED lights lined the ceiling and illuminated the room in a red glow. It smelled faintly of weed. There were posters of all kinds all over the walls and her bed was bare except for a few blankets and a worn looking teddy bear. Nicole couldn’t help but smile.  
“So what’s the deal with you and my sister, kid?”  
Wynonna was smiling playfully and motioning to an open drawer in her dresser. Nicole bent down and sifted through the bathing suits, grateful to have an excuse to get away from being eye level with Wynonna.  
“She used to help with my grandma before my mom and I came and we’ve been hanging out for a while and-,” Nicole stopped, blinking at Wynonna and the smirk plastered across her face.  
“I mean, do you guys have a thing? There was a lot of tension down there in that kitchen if you ask me.”  
I wasn’t asking, Nicole thought, feeling her heels grow hot once again.  
“Oh, nothing,” she managed to choke out. “We’re just friends.”  
“It’s just that I’ve never seen her look at anyone the way she looks at you.”  
Nicole felt her heart begin to beat out of her chest and swallowed. She couldn’t even imagine a world where she liked Waverly and Waverly liked her back. Wynonna seemed to get the message that Nicole would rather not discuss the subject and stopped prying, leading Nicole to a bathroom where she changed into the swim suit she had picked.  
Downstairs, Waverly had finished cleaning the kitchen and seemed to have already changed into her bathing suit, the strings showing on her neck from under Nicole’s t-shirt.  
“You ready, Nic?”  
“As I’ll ever be,” Nicole smiled back.  
“Bye Wynonna,” they cheered in sync.  
“It was really nice meeting you,” Nicole said, much less shyly than she had before.  
“You too, Nicole.”  
The girls got into Waverly’s car and she smiled at Nicole.  
“Hope Wynonna wasn’t too hard on you,” she said airily, her voice breathy with laughter.  
“She was fine,” Nicole returned her laughter. “Is it always like that?”  
Waverly had pulled out of the driveway and looked to Nicole, confused.  
“What do you mean?”  
“I mean, do you fight and then just make up without having to say anything? I don’t have any siblings, it seems strange to me.” She bit her tongue and cursed herself for even asking. She didn’t want to overstep any boundaries and make Waverly feel like she was casting judgement.  
“Honestly, yeah.”  
Nicole was grateful to hear the brunette laugh; she hadn’t fucked anything up just yet.  
“We can say the worst things to each other and wake up best friends, it’s kind of ridiculous. But usually when she’s in a blackout she doesn’t even remember that we’d fought. I don’t like to make it a big deal because it makes her feel like shit about herself and just brings up the issue all over again which stresses me out.”  
Waverly’s knuckles were white on the wheel and Nicole realized that she was trying not to cry.  
“That makes sense. You’re a good sister.”  
“Eh, could be better,” Waverly said, flashing Nicole a smile.  
“So, where exactly are we going? You never told me.”  
“It’s a surprise,” Waverly said, turning onto a dirt road surrounded by trees. Nicole had never seen more green in one place in Purgatory until now. “What I will tell you is that it’s my second favorite hiding spot out of the three, Mr. Manor’s being the first.”  
Nicole smiled and stared out the open window letting the cool summer breeze whip her red hair around her face. Every time she spent time with Waverly she felt as though they were going on a secret adventure that only the two of them could be privy to. It almost felt like magic.  
Before she knew it, they were pulling into a heavily wooded spot, trees practically enveloping the car as Waverly parked.  
“Okay.”  
“Okay?” Nicole’s head tilted, ready to follow the other girls next move.  
“We have to walk a little bit, but it will be worth it.”  
Waverly and Nicole’s interpretations of ‘a little bit’ were very different; Nicole was sweating by the time they reached a particularly thick part of the trees and Waverly told her to stop.  
“Now, it’s nothing that special, so don’t get your hopes up too much.” Waverly shot Nicole a look as if to say you ready? and motioned towards the hanging leaves and branches in front of them.  
“Close your eyes, I’ll guide you.”  
Moving forward, she used her hands to spread the branches enough to let her through the wall of vines and leaves, reaching behind her for Nicole’s hand and squeezing it once she found it.  
“Okay, this way, and we’re here.”  
Nicole opened her eyes to what appeared to be a sparkling blue lake, bordered by rocks and trees. It was almost completely enclosed by the forestry surrounding it and looked almost like a very large and private swimming pool. The water was clear and the sunlight hit it just right, so that it almost looked like it was glistening with glitter.  
“Wow,” Nicole said in a hushed voice. She didn’t want to disturb the peaceful privacy that hung heavy in the air.  
“Technically, we aren’t in Purgatory anymore, we’re right over the border once we cross a certain part of the woods, but I still count this as a secret gem of Purgatory. It’s a manmade reservoir that was built around the time we were born. Again, technically we aren’t supposed to swim here because it’s Purgatory’s emergency water supply, but nobody ever comes around here. Wynonna and I have been hanging out here since I was ten.”  
Waverly’s face was lit up by the water, the blue reflecting off of her eyes and making them look extra green in the light. She looked the way she looked whenever they entered the basement of the book store, like she was finally home safe after a long time away.  
“It’s beautiful, Waves.”  
“I’m glad you think so too. Sometimes I drive up here just so I can sit here and read with the sun bouncing off the water and onto my face. And sometimes I come with Wynonna when I can drag her out here. Ever since she graduated college she hasn’t been as interested in spending her time here as she had been before.” Waverly trailed off, starting to remove her shirt.  
“You up for a swim?”  
Nicole smirked back at her and took off her own shirt, stepping out of her shoes and onto the branches and leaves that were scattered beneath them.  
“Of course.”  
“Wanna jump in together?”  
Nodding, Nicole grabbed Waverly’s hand and led her to the edge of the rock on which they were standing. Making sure there were no rocks in the water beneath them, the two girls stepped back and ran, jumping into the cool water beneath them.  
When Nicole surfaced and rubbed the water out of her eyes, Waverly was smiling.  
“That never gets old,” she said laughing, treading water and making her way closer to Nicole.  
Suddenly, the younger girl splashed Nicole and screamed “You’re it!”  
Nicole screeched in response and began to chase after Waverly, who was already swimming away towards the center of the pond.  
“Fuck you,” Nicole called, laughing and kicking as hard as she could to catch up.  
The girls maintained this game of splash-tag, as Waverly called it, for over an hour, neither realizing how tired they were because of how busy they were having fun. Nicole couldn't remember the last time she had laughed this hard. By the time they had climbed back up to where their clothes lay, they were both exhausted.  
“That was so much fun,” Waverly said, turning her head to look at Nicole.  
They were both lying on their backs on a large towel Waverly had brought, catching their breath and pointing out particularly funny looking clouds to each other.  
“I agree. Ten out of ten hiding spot, Earp. I could hide here forever.”  
They stayed like that for a while, shoulders touching as the sun dried them off. It wasn’t until Waverly turned so that she was on her side facing Nicole that they spoke again.  
“You know, I really, really like hanging out with you Nicole. You make me feel like I can actually have fun here, no matter how much fucked up shit is going on. I’m really glad your mom dragged your ass here, even if you aren’t.”  
Nicole stuck out her tongue at the girl, blushing.  
“I really, really like hanging out with you too, Earp.”  
It felt like a long time that Waverly’s eyes stared into hers, their faces so close together Nicole was almost going cross eyed trying to keep eye contact. She didn’t think she had ever been so happy.  
Without thinking, she leaned in, placing her lips gently on the girl’s beside her. Pulling away, she looked anxiously from Waverly to the sky and prayed that she hadn’t just made the worst mistake of her life and ruined the best friendship she’d had in a long time. To her surprise, Waverly smiled and leaned back into Nicole, kissing her back, more passionately this time.  
Nicole didn’t know how long they stayed like that, Waverly’s bottom lip between hers, one hand on Nicole’s cheek and one on her hip. She felt like she had just won the lottery, or found out the best news, or had been handed a jar filled with thousands of fireflies that could never die.  
Her heart was beating out of her chest and her hands around Waverly’s face felt so right, she never wanted to remove them.  
Purgatory definitely wasn’t as bad as she had anticipated.


	5. Please Don't Go

Nicole didn’t know how long she kissed Waverly, just that she tasted like strawberries and her lips were really, really soft. She didn’t want to be the first to pull away, but she didn’t want the beautiful girl she was kissing to pull away from her either.   
Before she knew what was happening her hands were in Waverly’s hair and she had rolled onto her back so that the smaller girl was on top of her, her thigh in between Nicole’s. Nicole couldn’t ignore how fast her heart was beating or the feeling in between her legs that was too loud to ignore.  
“Nicole,” Waverly breathed, removing her lips from between the redhead’s. “Are you sure?”  
Nicole stopped and looked into Waverly’s eyes, her heartbeat thunderous in her chest. She didn’t know how to respond, she was so enraptured with the girl hovering inches away from her face.  
“Am I sure about what?”  
“You, me. This. Are you sure you want to do this? I don’t want to get the wrong impression and fall for you even more than I already have.”  
Waverly was breathing heavily, her body shaking over Nicole. She was scared, scared to find out that Nicole didn’t actually like her, that this was just something that had happened, that she was experimenting and Waverly was the guinea pig. But mostly, she was scared that everything she was feeling was real and that it was real for Nicole too.  
She hadn’t felt like this in a long time, maybe even ever, and things that felt this good couldn’t be real, permanent, steady. Things that made her this happy, people that made her laugh the way Nicole always could always ended up hurting her. She was tired of believing in something only to learn that it was never real in the first place.  
“I’m sure, Waverly. I really like you.” Nicole was blushing and Waverly had rolled back onto her side so that the two were face to face. “I can’t believe that you like me.”  
“Haught, are you kidding? I’ve had a crush on you since the second you appeared on your grandmother's front steps. I can’t believe you like me.”  
Nicole looked at the girl laying next to her and laughed breathily. The butterflies in her stomach were so hot and alive that she almost thought of them as fireflies. Fireflies reminded her of Waverly; it seemed only right that she would be the girl to ignite a swarm of fireflies in Nicole’s core.  
“Wow.”  
Nicole laughed, letting out a long breath.  
“Wow,” Waverly agreed.  
Before either girl could say anything else their lips were once again locked, their limbs intertwined, their skin hot on each other’s. Nicole had never kissed anyone and had it feel as comfortable, as right as it did with Waverly. She couldn’t believe she was actually kissing Waverly Earp.  
When they finally broke apart and their lips were swollen and red, the sky was turning golden, the sun beginning to sink behind the trees. They had lost track of time; they’d been at the reservoir all day. Samantha would be expecting Nicole home soon.  
“You’re right,” Nicole sighed when Waverly pointed out that they should probably pack up and drive back home before it got dark. Her hair had dried in perfect waves that cascaded down her back like a waterfall. Nicole couldn’t help but think about how soft it probably felt.  
The drive home was quiet, but the comfortable type of quiet that felt just right, like they could feel exactly what the other was feeling without having to say anything. Nicole could have sat in that beautiful silence forever.  
Waverly dropped Nicole off with promises to text her about plans for the rest of the week and a firm squeeze of the hand. Neither girl was ready to kiss each other goodbye, especially not in the open in sight of both of their mothers.  
“Did you have a good day with Waverly, sweetie?”   
Samantha was sitting at the kitchen table with her reading glasses on, going over what looked like a stack of medical paperwork. Nicole guessed that it belonged to her grandmother.  
“Yeah, thanks. Is there anything for dinner?”  
“Leftover Chinese in the fridge, baby,” her mother replied airily.   
Nicole took a half full takeout container back to her room and sat on her bed, dazed. She couldn’t believe she had actually just spent hours kissing Waverly Earp. Her fork was halfway to her mouth when she felt her phone buzz next to her on her bed.  
I had a really good time today, the text read. It was from Waverly, which anyone could have guessed had they felt how fast Nicole's heart was beating.   
Me too. We should do it again some time ;).   
Her face felt hot and she knew she must be getting red. Flirting with Waverly felt natural, coming to her without thinking or having to try. Her phone vibrated again and she smiled.  
Definitely :)  
Before she could respond, another text appeared underneath the previous one.  
You’re a good kisser, Haught. Can’t believe you’ve been hiding that from me this entire time.   
Right back at you, she typed back.   
The longer they texted, the faster the wings of the butterflies in Nicole’s stomach beat, the more heat that rose to her face. She could practically feel her stomach in her throat, but in a way that felt less like she was about to enter an exam she hadn’t studied for and rather a way that made her smile even wider, if it was even possible.  
Nicole was smiling at her ceiling when her phone buzzed again.   
Rosita just texted me about a party she’s having tomorrow night. Wanna come? I can get us some more of that stuff we smoked the other day.  
Nicole felt a lump catch in her throat. The thought of spending time with Waverly made her stomach flutter with excitement, but the thought of such an intense social situation with people she didn’t know made her nervous. She had never been much for parties, and was usually the one who stayed in the corner on her phone for the most part. Deciding she would be okay, that she would have fun so long as she was with Waverly, she typed back a response.  
Sounds good to me, just let me know what time.   
She didn’t realize that her hands were shaking a little as she held her phone waiting for Waverly’s response, but the thought crossed her mind that it was a party and there would be alcohol there and a little liquid courage never hurt anyone. Well, except every alcoholic in the world, but that was besides the point.  
I’m doing your makeup, you have no choice.  
Nicole smiled. Waverly had been trying to get Nicole to let her dress her up since the day she had arrived in Purgatory.  
She fell asleep with her phone on next to her, playing back the day’s events in her mind and smiling. Waverly’s lips really were very soft.  
The next morning, Nicole awoke deeply regretting agreeing to go to the party. She spent most of the day sulking around the house dreading the evening and trying to remind herself that she would have fun, that she would be with Waverly, that maybe they would even kiss again. When she knocked on the Earp’s front door at 7pm that evening, the door swung open as if it had been waiting for her. Waverly looked beautiful, with pink eyeshadow coating her eyelids and small pink stars surrounding her eyes, glittering in the light. They matched the small pink top she was wearing and made her big eyes look even bigger, which Nicole hadn’t known was possible.  
“Hi, Haught. Makeover time.”  
Waverly practically dragged Nicole upstairs by the hand and had her sit down in a chair in front of a mirror that exuded bright, white light. Nicole assumed it was a special makeup mirror that Waverly used to do her own makeup.  
“Close your eyes,” Waverly said breathily, leaning down towards Nicole so that their faces were hovering inches apart. Nicole couldn’t help but blush, feeling the heat rise in her face. She really wanted to kiss Waverly on the nose, or better yet, on those soft lips she couldn’t stop thinking about.   
Nicole obeyed, closing her eyes and feeling a soft brush tickle her eyelids. She stayed like that for a while, with Waverly occasionally telling her to raise her chin this way or that, or open her eyes for a moment so she could examine her progress. Every time the brunette made eye contact with her, Nicole had to look away, feeling her face grow hot. Waverly was really, really pretty.  
“Okay, you can open your eyes.”  
Nicole opened her eyes and turned, looking into the mirror that glowed with light and seeing the purple glitter Waverly had dragged down her eyes like tears, the soft purple eyeshadow she had painted onto her eyelids. She felt unlike herself, but she felt beautiful.  
“Wow.”  
Waverly laughed.  
“I know, you’re pretty hot.”   
Nicole felt her face growing hot again and laughed too.   
“You’re really good at this, Earp. I would look like a clown had I tried to do this myself.”  
“Oh shut up,” Waverly said, softly punching Nicole on the arm, but Nicole noticed that Waverly was the one blushing now. She smiled.  
While Nicole sat and gazed in the mirror at Waverly’s work, the shorter girl rifled through her closet and drawers for the perfect outfit for her friend. Finally, Nicole was dressed in a black mini skirt and a soft purple tank top that matched her eye makeup. She couldn’t help but feeling like she and Waverly kind of looked like Powerpuff Girls.   
When they got into the car, Waverly pulled out a jar from the small backpack she had placed on the floor of the car next to her feet. Inside were two neatly rolled joints, which Nicole assumed had come from Wynonna.  
“Do you want to smoke one now, and then one at some point tonight?”  
Nicole nodded, then remembered that smoking one now would entail Waverly driving them to the party under the influence, and no matter how many times she had driven with her friends when they were high, the thought still made her nervous.  
“How about we smoke one when we get there?” She offered meekly.  
Waverly smiled.  
“Of course, shit I completely forgot I would have to actually drive us somewhere after. I’m not exactly a great driver when I’m high. We’ll smoke before we go inside.”  
Nicole let out a breath of relief, glad they were on the same page and she hadn’t caused any tension with her suggestion. They drove in comfortable silence to a house about ten minutes away, and Nicole could hear the music from outside on the curb. Waverly pulled out a joint and lit one end, inhaling and exhaling smoke into the air. She had taken the top off her car and rolled down the windows, but Nicole still questioned if the car was still going to smell by the time they got home.   
The girls passed the joint back and forth until each of them were sufficiently high, giggling and talking much slower than they had been ten minutes prior. Still laughing, Waverly grabbed Nicole’s hand as they left the car and walked through the open front door.   
A short, pretty girl with long dark hair and glowing, tan skin ran up to them and into Waverly’s arms, hugging her and rocking back and forth.   
“EARP!! I missed you so much, you look so cute. I’m so glad you came!” Her words were slightly slurred but she was standing evenly on her two feet, and Nicole felt a pang of jealousy at this girl’s ability to socialize so well.  
“I missed you too, Rosie. We definitely need to catch up soon. This is Nicole, the one I told you about.”  
“Ooh, this is Nicole.” The girl raised her eyebrows at Waverly and looked from one girl to the next, her eyes eventually landing on Nicole. “It’s really nice to meet you, I’m Rosita. Welcome to Purgatory.”  
Nicole laughed, glad that it was dark inside the house so that neither girl could see how much she was blushing at Rosita’s reaction to her name. The thought of Waverly talking about her to her friends made Nicole’s stomach turn over.   
“Nicole,” she said, smiling nervously and extending her hand. “It’s really nice to meet you too.”  
Rosita smiled and grabbed Nicole’s hand.   
“Come on, I’m gonna introduce you to some of my friends.”   
Nicole swallowed nervously, looking around for Waverly who had already disappeared into the crowd, her head mixing with the others and her voice drowned out by the music. She prayed that she would find Waverly again soon, and if not her, a bottle of something strong.  
“This is Champ, and this is Jeremy. Guys, this is Nicole. She’s from New York City, she’s here for the summer living next door to Waverly.”  
Nicole smiled and waved meekly.   
To her surprise, the boy who Rosita had introduced as Jeremy leaned in and hugged her.   
“Welcome to Purgatory,” he said brightly. “I know it sucks, probably seems like Hell compared to NYC.”  
Nicole laughed and made small talk with Jeremy, who led her into the kitchen where there were bottles of alcohol all over the counter. She grabbed herself a cup and poured some vodka into it, adding lemonade to the remainder. The hot feeling of the alcohol going down her throat and warming her stomach instantly made her feel looser, like she wasn’t in a house filled with people she didn’t know whatsoever, and who didn’t know her.  
By the time she found Waverly again, she was definitely slightly tipsy, her eyes feeling heavier than before and the people around her much less daunting.  
“Earp!” she called, laughing as she stumbled over to her friend.  
She thought she saw Waverly’s smile falter as she made her way towards her, but brushed it out of her mind. Running up and giving her a hug, Nicole continued smiling.  
“Rosita introduced me to Jeremy and Champ, Jeremy seems cool,” Nicole said a little too loudly.  
Waverly flinched, then smiled. “Jeremy’s the best,” she said, her voice sounding far away. “Champ’s kind of a dick. I dated him before I realized that I like girls and he was an asshole about it when we broke up and I came out.”  
“Damn,” Nicole said quietly. “Guess I don’t like him then.”  
Waverly smiled and grabbed Nicole’s hand.   
“Can we go somewhere more quiet? Rosie doesn’t care if we go to her room, I already asked if we could chill in there in case you got overwhelmed.”  
Nicole felt her face grow warm again and couldn’t tell if it was the alcohol or the fact that Waverly had thought about how she might be anxious around so many people she didn’t know and went out of her way to make sure that Nicole would be comfortable. She followed Waverly down a crowded hallway and into a dark room. Waverly shut the door behind them and the noises of the party were suddenly muffled, the way they had been outside in the car.   
“I kind of hate parties sometimes,” Waverly said quietly. She laid down on Rosita’s bed and looked at the ceiling. “They’re really overwhelming and I always just end up thinking about Wynonna or my dad when people end up too drunk or try to drive themselves or their friends home when they shouldn’t even be standing.”   
“I get that.” Nicole was quiet. “Parties are definitely really overwhelming. I’m glad you brought me though, I’m having fun. It’s cool to meet all of your friends.”  
Waverly smiled and lifted herself up as Nicole sat next to her so that she was lying on her stomach, propped up by her elbows. Nicole couldn’t tell if it was the alcohol or just the fact that Waverly was the most beautiful girl she had ever seen, but she really wanted to kiss her.  
“I really want to kiss you right now,” Nicole said, her words slightly blurred at the edges, swaying a little without realizing it. “I don’t know why I said that,” she added quickly.  
“It’s okay, I want to kiss you too.”  
Before Nicole could register what was happening, Waverly was leaning over her and her bottom lip was in between Nicole’s. Without thinking, Nicole turned so that she was upright and Waverly was underneath her, placing her lips onto her neck, grazing her teeth over her collarbone. Her hands were all over her, on her hips, on the insides of her thighs, on her face as she kissed her. She had never felt this brave, nor had she ever been quite so turned on. She could feel a wetness in between her legs and began to pull off her shirt, then Waverly’s. Once both of them were in their bras, shirts thrown to the floor, Nicole trailed her tongue along Waverly’s thigh, feeling her grip on her hair tighten as she kissed her all over. She had left marks all over Waverly’s neck and boobs, feeling bold and unafraid of anything.  
When she reached down to Waverly’s underwear, ready to slip off her pants, Waverly paused and pulled away.  
“I don’t think we should do this,” she said quietly.  
Nicole was taken aback, her face hot with embarrassment, in between her legs still throbbing as she looked at Waverly’s uneasy, flushed face.   
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I just thought..” she trailed off and looked up to the ceiling, feeling suddenly very hurt and very embarrassed. She wanted Waverly to take her home right then and there.   
“No, Nicole, please don’t be upset. I just don’t think we should do this right now. You’re drunk, I don’t want you doing something you might regret.”  
Nicole felt her face flush for a different reason. She was angry that Waverly thought she was too drunk to consent, too drunk to know what she was doing. She had barely had more than four shots of alcohol and considered herself to be only slightly tipsy.   
“I’m not that drunk,” she said coldly. “I wouldn’t regret anything.”  
Waverly bit her lip and raised her eyes to the ceiling as though she were about to cry. Sighing, she inched farther away from Nicole and looked into her glassy eyes.   
“I just don’t want to do this right now, Nicole. You’re drunk.”  
Nicole felt the anger that was settled in her throat rise to her head. She knew it was probably just the alcohol that was making her emotions so intense, but she suddenly wanted to scream and cry and fight with Waverly. How dare she accuse her of being drunk, how dare she assume she was too intoxicated to be aware of her actions and decisions. Looking away and down to the floor, she tossed Waverly her shirt and put her own on.  
“We can keep kissing, I’m just not ready for this. Not right now. I’m sorry.” Waverly looked anxious and sad, like she saw someone else in Nicole’s eyes that she didn’t like very much.  
“No, don’t apologize. I get it, it’s fine.” She meant it, but for some reason it came out sounding hostile. “I’m drunk,” she added, and the moment she said it she knew she was being rude, she was unnecessarily angry.   
“Nicole-” Waverly started, her voice sounding particularly small, almost the way it had that night when she had fought with Wynonna.   
“No, it’s fine. Really. I get it. I’m gonna go back out to the party now. Let me know when you want to leave.”  
When she shut the door with Waverly still sitting on the bed, eyes shining with tears, her shirt still in a ball in her hands, Nicole felt her stomach turn with shame. She would never be mad at Waverly for not being ready. She would never want to pressure someone into doing something that they weren’t ready to do; she had been in the situation herself and knew how scary it could be.   
She couldn’t help but feel that Waverly commenting on her state of intoxication was a direct attack on her character. She knew about her family’s history of alcoholism, and calling her drunk felt insensitive, judgmental. In the back of her mind, a quiet voice reminded her that she wouldn’t be so upset if what Waverly had said wasn’t true, but she brushed it away and made her way back to the kitchen where she slammed down four more shots. Hey, she was already drunk, right? Might as well really have some fun with it.  
She found herself dancing in the center of the party with Rosita, her movements unstable, her vision blurry and spinning. She was too drunk, she knew it, and she regretted her moment of irrational anger that had told her drinking that much that quickly would be okay. She was ashamed for even giving in to the anger and the thoughts that told her the alcohol would fix it. She was ashamed, because she knew she was acting like her father, like Wynonna.  
By the time Waverly found Nicole, tapped her lightly on the shoulder and told her that she was going to head home, Nicole could barely stand up. She felt gross, like a drunk on the streets who couldn’t walk in a straight line. She was ready to go home.  
When they got in the car, Nicole felt the alcohol hit her even harder and a tight sadness attach itself to her chest. She couldn’t believe she had treated Waverly so poorly, Waverly, who had been nothing but kind to her since the day she stepped foot in Purgatory.   
As they drove away, Nicole glanced anxiously at Waverly, having trouble gauging her emotions by her expressions and physical demeanor alone because of how blurry her vision really was. She knew, however, that Waverly was upset, judging by how quiet she was.  
Clearing her throat, she turned away and looked out the window at the passing houses. When she realized it was making her feel even more sick than she already did, she looked back to Waverly and opened her mouth to speak.  
“I’m sorry,” she said, trying to compose herself, but the words came out jumbled and whiny, nothing like the way she would normally have said them. “I’m really sorry, Waverly.”  
Waverly was quiet for a moment, then glanced at the drunk girl in her passenger seat. The girl she barely recognized.   
“I know,” she said quietly.   
Nicole was quiet for a moment.  
“I think I’m going to throw up,”she said, though it sounded more like ‘Ithinkimgonnathrowupp.’  
“Shit, okay, hold on.”  
Waverly pulled over to the nearest curb and threw open the driver’s side door, running around to the passenger side and opening that door as well. Nicole was already vomiting by the time she got the door open, though she had managed to spare the car and got most of it on herself, on the tight skirt Waverly had put her in hours before.  
“Okay, it’s okay,” Waverly said quietly, grabbing handfuls of the redhead’s hair and holding it away from her face as she continued to get sick. Nicole was practically falling over sitting down, and Waverly held her up, her arms wrapped around her shoulders and chest, one hand holding onto Nicole and the other sparing her hair.   
“It’s okay, Nicole, it’s okay baby,” she said quietly, not even realizing that the last word had slipped out. She felt so bad that she had let Nicole get this drunk, that she had caused her to turn into a falling over drunk because of her stupid, insensitive comment. “You’re going to be okay.”  
Nicole gasped and spluttered, and after several minutes the vomiting had stopped and she was leaning against Waverly, her eyes closed.  
“I’m sorry,” she said, and Waverly heard her voice break, watched tears escape her eyes and run down her chin to her neck. “I’m so sorry.”  
“It’s okay, Nicole. It’s okay. I know.”  
Waverly felt her own voice break and swallowed hard to avoid releasing the tears that were threatening her eyes.   
“Let’s go home.”  
Nicole nodded in response and closed her eyes again, tears still leaking out of the corners.  
Waverly drove home, tears streaming down her own face silently. She liked Nicole so much, but she didn’t think she could handle this. She already stayed up every night worrying about Wynonna choking on her own vomit or crashing her car while drunk driving to the liquor store for more. She couldn’t do this again.  
She got Nicole into her bed with a trash can and a glass of water next to her on the floor. She set up a sleeping bag on the ground next to the bed and rolled onto her side, muffling sobs with her pillow, batting away tears with the back of her hand.   
Nicole slept through the night, but Waverly couldn’t fall asleep thinking about something bad happening to her. She lay there in the dark all night into morning, tears running down her face the entire time.


	6. Forgive, Don't Forget

Nicole woke with a headache sent directly from Hell and spent the entire morning throwing up in the Earp’s upstairs bathroom. Physically, she felt awful, but mentally, she felt even worse.   
She couldn’t remember how she had ended up in Waverly’s bed asleep in one of her t-shirts and just her underwear. She couldn’t remember much at all after throwing up in Waverly’s car, which she was so embarrassed about that she refused to leave the bathroom until she was sure she was done getting sick.  
She knew she had fucked up, knew she had hurt Waverly, knew she had probably just ruined whatever the two of them might’ve had. More than anything, she was ashamed of herself. She hadn’t meant to get that drunk, she hadn’t really meant to get drunk at all. She was terrified to leave the bathroom and face the disappointment she knew would be on Waverly’s face.   
When she finally got the courage to go back to Waverly’s bedroom, she opened the door to find that the room was empty. Realizing that Waverly was probably in the kitchen, she turned around and made her way downstairs. Michelle was still sleeping and Wynonna had gone out for the night and hadn’t yet returned. Apparently this was typical of Wynonna, according to Waverly, and there was no need to be worried when she didn’t get home until noon the next day.   
Nicole’s hunch had been right and she entered the kitchen to find Waverly over the waffle maker, ladling batter onto the steaming metal grill.   
Waverly seemed to have heard her footsteps and turned around, taking her eyes off of the waffles and placing them on Nicole. She looked sad, but worst of all, she looked concerned. Nicole couldn’t help but feel even more guilty; here was Waverly, worrying about her when she should be angry with her.  
“Hey Haught. Feeling better?” Her voice sounded far away, hollow.  
“A little yeah. I think I need to eat something.”   
Nicole stared at the floor, counting the tiles and avoiding making eye contact with the girl standing in front of her. She couldn’t bear to see the sad, disappointed look that was plastered to her face.  
“You definitely do,” Waverly said, her voice significantly warmer than it had been thirty seconds ago. “I made waffles, they always make Wynonna feel better when she’s hung over.”  
Nicole flinched at the comparison to Wynonna, feeling the familiar hot shame coat her skin, but brushed it off. She knew that Waverly wasn’t actually comparing her to her alcoholic older sister, rather using what she knew to help make Nicole feel better. Her stomach warmed with the feeling only Waverly could give her and she smiled.  
“Thanks Waves.”  
The girls sat down to eat and Nicole was surprised to find that she actually did feel a lot better after eating a couple of waffles. Maybe Waverly knew what she was talking about after all. They didn’t talk much, but Nicole couldn’t push the thought from her head that she owed Waverly a big apology. She didn’t want to repeat the cycle of getting drunk, hurting Waverly, then acting like absolutely nothing had happened the next morning. She didn’t want to let her think that she thought her actions were okay, that they didn’t warrant some kind of sit down apology.   
“I’m really sorry, Waverly.”   
Nicole was quiet as she looked at the girl sitting across from her, as she looked at the girl she had let down the night before.  
“I’m really, really sorry.”  
“I know, Nicole. It’s okay.”  
“No, Waverly, it’s not. It’s not okay. I was drunk and I got upset that you pointed it out because it made me feel like I was turning into the person I’ve always said I would never be and it scared me and I reacted badly. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have gotten angry at you and I shouldn’t have left you alone, or drank as much as I did. I know I messed up. And I’m sorry about it. I’m so sorry,” she said, breathing heavily when she finished, heart beating in her throat.  
“Nicole,” Waverly started, and Nicole was horrified to see that there were tears beginning to pool in her eyes. She looked at Nicole then down to her waffle, which she had barely touched. “I know, I know and it’s really okay. I’m not mad at you, I was just scared. I was just scared,” she repeated, and a tear escaped her eye and trailed down her cheek, ending at her chin.   
“Waverly,” Nicole said sadly, and got up to hug the smaller girl. The second Nicole’s hands touched Waverly’s back she began to sob, and she held onto Nicole like her life depended on it, like if she let go she would lose everything she’d ever had.  
“It’s okay, it’s okay, shh, I’m here,” Nicole cooed, stroking Waverly’s hair away from her face and wiping the tears from her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Waverly. I’m here and I’m always going to be here and last night won’t happen again. I promise.”  
Waverly let out a deep, sad sigh and sniffled, looking to Nicole.   
“I’m sorry, I just didn’t want to lose you. I don’t ever want to lose you, you’re so important to me.” The tears were flowing silently down her cheeks and dripping down her neck. “I don’t want anything to happen to you, I don’t want you to end up like our dads or Wynonna or my mom. I care about you so much.”  
“I care about you so much too,” Nicole said quietly. “I’m sorry for scaring you. I promise, if anything like that ever happens again I’ll talk to you, I won’t run away and drink whatever I’m feeling away. I promise.”   
The two girls sat like that at the kitchen table for a while, holding each other, tears pricking Nicole’s eyes at the ones that streaked down Waverly’s face. She could feel her shaking beneath her and held her that much tighter, hoping she could convey without words everything she felt about the girl and how far she would go to protect her.   
“Do you want to come to Mr. Manor’s with me today?”Waverly asked, breaking the twenty minute silence that had fallen over the room. It’s quiet, I think that would be nice.”  
“That would be nice,” Nicole agreed.  
So Waverly packed a picnic, cutting up some strawberries and placing them in a small basket with some nutella and rice cakes, as well as a turkey and avocado sandwich for them to share.  
Waverly let Nicole drive the jeep, even though she had barely driven in the past two years of having her license and didn’t really know what she was doing. The result was a lot of near misses and laughter that made their stomachs cramp and their cheeks hurt from smiling.  
Once they were through the backdoor of the bookstore and into the basement, Waverly put the picnic basket down in the middle of the rug and motioned for Nicole to sit down. Nicole mimicked her actions and sat down on the rug, crossing one leg over the other.   
As Waverly was pulling out the strawberries and nutella, Nicole felt the insatiable urge to kiss her. She leaned forward and kissed her forehead, feeling her own face grow hot.  
Waverly seemed to feel the same way, because when she smiled up at Nicole she saw that her face was glowing pink in the dim lighting. After waverly lit the candles, the girls picked at the food and Nicole took a deep breath.  
“Can we talk? About last night?”   
Waverly had been reaching for a strawberry and stopped, her arm pausing midair.   
“Okay,” she said quietly. “Yeah.”  
“Okay,” Nicole responded, biting her bottom lip and swallowing hard. “I know I already said it, but I’m really sorry. Really, really fucking sorry Waverly. I know I hurt you and I feel so horrible about it. You shouldn’t have had to take care of me, it was my fault I got like that.”  
“Nicole, you don’t have to keep apologizing. Really, you don’t. You’re allowed to drink, just because I have issues with it doesn’t mean you can’t have fun like everyone else. You really don’t have to apologize.”  
Waverly was looking so intensely at Nicole and her eyes were so sad and round that Nicole couldn’t bear to hold eye contact. She searched the room for something to fix her gaze upon and decided on the array of books that were shoved in random spaces on the full bookcase, wherever they could fit.  
“No, I do have to apologize,” she said quietly. “I fucked up and I treated you like shit.”  
They were both quiet.  
“And,” Nicole added, trying to break the tension, “I threw up on your skirt.”  
They both laughed and Waverly made a face at Nicole.  
“As if I care about that,” she said, laughing. “You have no idea how many times Wynonna has thrown up all over me. You were nothing, trust me.”  
Nicole laughed and smiled uncomfortably, the comment sending a ping to her heart as she remembered how she felt when she thought Waverly was thinking of her in the same light as a serious alcoholic who brought mostly chaos to her life.  
“Seriously though, you shouldn’t have to deal with that, especially not with me, not from me.”  
Waverly smiled but it was the sad kind of smile that made Nicole’s stomach hurt.  
“It’s okay Nicole.”  
“Please stop saying that it’s okay, Waverly, it’s not. I was an asshole and I went and got so fucked up you probably had to practically carry me inside the house. That's not fair. I don’t even remember how I ended up asleep in your bed with you on the floor.”  
To her surprise, Waverly laughed.  
“I’m not going to lie,” she began. “You were pretty cute. You didn’t want to change into pajamas and when I finally convinced you to put on a t-shirt you told me that by no means were you putting on pants. And normally I wouldn’t have slept on the floor but I wanted to make sure that I would be there in case you woke up and got sick or needed help.”  
“See that’s exactly what I mean when I talk about things you have to do.”   
Waverly sighed and grabbed both of Nicole’s hands.  
“Nicole.”  
“Waverly.”  
“Shut up and listen to me for a second. Yes you fucked up. Yes, you weren’t nice to me but it was because you were hurt and you were defending yourself from feeling those emotions. I know exactly how that is. Trust me. I forgive you. It was a mistake and I believe you when you say it won’t happen again. And I mean it when I say that you’re allowed to do whatever you want in terms of substances. Yes, it will always scare me because I know it’s in your DNA, but I trust you.”   
It was Nicole’s turn to tear up, her eyes watering and threatening to spill tears down her cheeks. A soft “thank you” was all she managed to get out without her voice breaking.   
“You're so special Nicole. I’ve never met anyone like you. Never.”  
Waverly was looking at her with sparkling eyes and a smile that Nicole would never get tired of staring at.   
“That’s exactly how I feel about you,” she said quietly, her voice practically a whisper.   
“Good, otherwise that would’ve been kind of awkward,” Waverly replied, leaning in and placing a soft kiss on Nicole’s nose.  
They lay there for a while, laughing, eating strawberries, talking about their plans for the future, if they wanted to go to college or not and what they would study if they did. Nicole lost herself playing with Waverly’s long, soft hair, and Waverly eventually drifted off to sleep, her eyelids fluttering as she breathed. Her head rested in Nicole’s lap and she continued to stroke her hair, brushing the small pieces away from her forehead and towards her own chest.   
Nicole could have laid there forever with Waverly’s soft cheek resting against her thigh, the candles burning slowly and lighting up the dark space so that everything looked like it was illuminated by millions of fireflies.   
She still felt awful, but she felt even worse because of how well Waverly had reacted. Part of her wanted screaming, crying, a fight, or at least some sort of anger, hostility from the other girl. Her compassion and empathy made Nicole feel even more guilty about how she had treated her. If Waverly had been any nicer, Nicole probably would have burst into tears right then and there.  
There wasn’t anyone in the world nicer than Waverly, nobody more empathetic, nobody who could make her smile quite so much. She liked her more than anyone she had ever had a crush on before, and a tiny, crazy part of her thought that she maybe even loved her.   
She wanted to take all of the bad things in her life and replace them with good. Waverly didn’t deserve anything close to the life she had and she was still the most loving person she could be.   
Looking down at the sleeping girl, Nicole kissed her forehead.   
Waverly didn’t deserve to have to care for her older sister when she already didn’t have a parent to care for her. She didn’t deserve to spend most of her waking moments worrying that in any moment the rug could be ripped out from under her. She didn’t deserve to have to feel anything bad, ever, and Nicole would have taken it all away from her and placed it on her own shoulders.   
She was so tired of seeing bad things happen to people who deserved nothing but good.   
It must have been twenty minutes of watching Waverly sleep before Nicole felt herself start to drift off. She was still a little hungover from the night before and was exhausted, having woken up early to get sick. Before she knew it, she was asleep with Waverly’s head still on her legs, her own head bent over and resting on the left side of the other sleeping girl.  
Neither girl knew what time it was when they were woken up by the vibrations of Waverly’s cellphone. Disoriented, Waverly lifted her head off of Nicole and reached for the phone, finding it at the foot of the rug and bringing it to her ear.  
“Hello,” she said, her voice muffled with sleep.  
Nicole heard someone speaking through the other end but it sounded like it was coming from underwater. Waverly listened quietly and her lips turned in a frown.   
“Okay,” she said quietly, taking the phone away from her ear and hanging up.   
“What’s wrong?” Nicole could tell that the call had rattled Waverly; her hands were shaking and her brows were knit together, creating that familiar crinkle in between.  
“Wynonna still hasn’t come home and her best friend Mercedes who she was with last night said she left last night. She’s missing.”  
Her eyes welled with tears and she shuddered.  
“What if something happened to her, Nicole?”


	7. Gone Girl

Nicole didn’t think she had ever seen someone look quite so terrified in her entire life than Waverly did right now. Her eyes were alight with a fear so strong it was almost tangible. Nicole could feel it in the air, thick, like the condensed heat that came before a thunderstorm. She wanted to grab Waverly and hold her tight, but she had a feeling that there was nothing she could do right now to fix things.   
“I need to go home,” Waverly said softly, so quietly that Nicole almost didn’t hear her. “I need to be with my mom right now.”  
“Of course,” Nicole said, responding maybe a little too quickly. Her own anxiety was high, rising to her throat as though it were a fist preparing to choke her. “Of course Waves. Can you drive?”  
Waverly nodded but the way her hands were shaking in front of her told Nicole the opposite. Her face was white, like all the hope in her body had sunk to her feet and drained out the back door with the cool breeze.   
The girls got into the car and it felt like they were moving in slow motion. Everything was eerily quiet except for the ringing in Waverly’s ears. Only one thought floated through her mind, swimming away from her every time it was within reach like a brightly colored fish she just couldn’t catch.   
Wynonna is missing.  
Nothing else seemed to matter in that moment, not the goosebumps that covered her body nor the sick feeling that was swaying in her stomach. She only needed one thing right now, and that was Wynonna.  
Her hands shook so much that she felt like they belonged to somebody else. She no longer had control of her body, her hands weak and convulsing on the worn leather of the steering wheel. The steering wheel of the car that had once been Wynonna’s. She couldn’t think.  
Nicole was quiet in the passenger seat, watching Waverly fumble with her keys and put her foot shakily on the gas as they pulled away from the abandoned bookstore. She knew that Waverly was far from okay, but even clearer was her knowledge that nothing she could say or do would make the situation easier.   
“Mercedes said that Wynonna left early last night.”   
Waverly said it like they had been in the middle of a normal conversation and it was just another talking point. She stared icily at the road, her knuckles white on the steering wheel, small beads of sweat pooling at her temples.   
“Well, early for Wynonna. She should’ve been back by now.”  
Nicole bit her lip, afraid to speak and make Waverly feel worse. She didn’t know what to say, and the thoughts and images that were darting through her mind right now wouldn’t have been helpful at all.   
“What if she’s dead, Nicole?”  
Waverly looked suddenly into the redhead’s eyes and away from the road, the ice that had been glazing over them back in the basement of the bookstore melted away by the flames now dancing in her eyes. She was determined to get home, determined to find her sister even if it meant going around and knocking on every door in Purgatory herself.   
“Don’t think like that, Waves. She might’ve crashed at a friend’s place and forgotten to text your mom. Or just didn’t care to.” She paused uncertainly. “It’s Wynonna,” she added, trying to crack a smile at the scared girl next to her.   
“I need to find her.”   
Waverly’s voice was hard but Nicole knew that underneath the serious, stoic demeanor she wore was someone who had never been so scared in their life, someone whose worst fears were coming to light after hundreds of nights imagining them. She wanted to hug Waverly, to hold her hand, to whisper in her ear that everything would be okay. But she couldn’t, because truthfully, she wasn’t sure that anything would be okay.   
Waverly felt almost like she was drowning, like her head was underwater and no matter how hard she kicked, no matter how far she swam up, something above her just pushed her further and further into the black that awaited her. It almost seemed easier to turn around and swim down, give up and breathe in the water that she knew would fill her lungs and sink her like a rock to the bottom of the ocean. She remembered hearing something about how drowning is the only time in your life where breathing will kill you, and she felt that the notion made a lot of sense now. To breathe was to live, and with every breath came a more intense wave of fear that pushed her further down.   
When they finally pulled into the Earps’ driveway, Nicole was surprised to see that there weren’t any police cars parked nearby, that there seemed to be absolutely no commotion. She figured that when someone was missing the first thing to do was call local authorities and put out a missing person’s report, but maybe Wynonna hadn’t been gone long enough for that.   
“Can you come inside with me?”  
Waverly’s voice was so small that Nicole almost didn’t recognize it.  
“Of course, angel. Of course. I’m not going anywhere.”  
Nicole felt herself blush when she realized she had called Waverly angel, but let it go, realizing that the brunette had much more important things on her mind than how Nicole was talking to her.  
When they got inside, the house felt oddly empty, too quiet.  
“Mom?” Waverly put her keys down in a bowl near the front door and kicked off her shoes, walking towards the kitchen. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me?”  
Nicole opened her mouth to ask what was wrong but she only had to look over Waverly’s shoulder to see Michelle passed out on the kitchen table, an orange bottle knocked on its side next to her.   
“Wake up!” Waverly demanded, calling loudly to her mother and snatching the bottle from the table top. “Wake up,” she hissed, the anger in her voice so cold it could’ve cut diamonds.   
When her mother didn’t stir, Waverly stormed out of the room with the bottle, and Nicole, assuming the worst, followed quickly behind her.   
“Waverly-” she started.  
“NO,” Waverly shouted. “I’m so sick of this, I’m so sick of her. She’s a piece of shit mother and she knows it.”   
Her voice was laced with venom but Nicole could see the tears building in her eyes.   
“I’m done,” Waverly said firmly, opening the bottle and pouring the bar shaped pills into the sink, turning on the water and flicking a switch that Nicole realized was the garbage disposal. “She’ll survive without them.”  
Seething, Waverly went back to where her mother’s head lay flat against the wood of their kitchen table and slammed her palm down next to her head. She didn’t stir.  
“WAKE UP,” she said hysterically, tears beginning to fall down her face, “YOUR DAUGHTER IS MISSING YOU ASSHOLE,” she sobbed. “WAKE UP.”  
Nicole found herself wrapping her arms around Waverly and sinking to the ground, the smaller girl shaking in her grasp. Her entire body was wracked with sobs and she continued to scream for her mother to wake up. Part of Nicole wanted to check her pulse but she knew that she was just barred out and would come to eventually.   
“Wake up,” Waverly whispered, her voice sounding like she was underwater, drowning in the tears that streamed endlessly down her face. “Please wake up.”  
“Shhhh,” Nicole soothed Waverly, stroking her hair away from her face with one hand and holding her tightly with the other.   
“She can’t be gone,” Waverly whispered once more. “I need her, Nicole.”  
Nicole knew that the girl in her arms was referring to Wynonna and not her passed out mother, and she kissed the top of her head, trying to quiet her breathing by taking deep breaths herself.  
She wished more than anything that she could help Waverly, but she knew there was nothing she could do, and the thought sent her heart to the bottom of her stomach. She wanted to cry, she had never seen anyone so sad before and she cared about Waverly more than anything.   
Waverly was the moon and the stars, the sun that made her want to wake up in the morning. Her warmth could be felt anytime you were close to her and she truly did righten every room she entered, like she was a tangible ray of sunshine spreading life to everything in her path. Nicole really had never met anyone like her. She was quiet most of the time, but if anyone asked her about Waverly she would have no problem speaking for hours. She could never run out of good things to say about the girl she liked so much.   
“Come on, Waves,” she said quietly after several silent moments had passed, the only sound being Waverly’s ragged breathing and tortured sobs. “Let’s go to your room.”  
Waverly nodded absently, like she could hear Nicole but had no idea what the other girl was thinking or what exactly she was agreeing to. The only thing she could focus on was her sister, her sister who had cooked her dinner when their mother couldn’t, who picked her up from school when their mother forgot, who held her while she got sick when their mother was too high to care. Her sister, who was the only person in the world she knew would love her forever, was gone. She couldn’t help thinking the worst.  
When they were in her room, Nicole helped Waverly get into her bed and crawled in beside her. Instinctively, Waverly curled closer to Nicole and wrapped her legs between Nicole’s, resting her head on her shoulder. She was so scared, but when Nicole’s arms were around her everything felt different. She couldn’t hear the voices in her head that were screaming that her sister was dead, she couldn’t feel the chills that enveloped her entire body with goosebumps, she couldn’t see images of Wynonna’s funeral flashing through her field of vision. When she was with Nicole, everything seemed to get quiet, like it was so far away it couldn’t ever reach her. Like she was safe so long as she was with this girl, this beautiful girl who had arrived from New York City to a place like Purgatory and fallen into her lap.  
“Thank you.” Waverly’s voice was no longer shaking, her tears had stopped, and she lay still against Nicole, her fingers wrapped with the hair she anxiously fiddled with.  
“For what?”  
Nicole looked down at the brunette and raised her eyebrows slightly, confused.  
“For being here. For holding me and keeping me from completely losing my mind. It means a lot to me.” She paused, looking from the ceiling to Nicole, her eyes big and round in anticipation for whatever Waverly would say next. “You mean a lot to me.”   
“You mean a lot to me too. And like I’ve said before, I’ll always be here for you. Rain or shine baby.” Nicole laughed and Waverly joined in, though halfheartedly.   
“Thank you,” she said quietly.   
“You don’t have to say-” but Nicole was interrupted by Waverly, who leaned in and grabbed her face with both hands, kissing her slowly, catching Nicole off guard.   
They remained entwined for several minutes, Nicole kissing Waverly back, wiping away the stray tears that remained on her face. When they pulled apart, Waverly’s eyes were wide and shining, no longer with tears but with affection, almost adoration. She couldn’t believe she had been lucky enough to meet a girl like Nicole, let alone sort of kind of date her.  
“I like you a lot, Nicole.”  
“I like you a lot too, Waverly.”  
“You make me feel safe,” she said quietly, looking down at her hands, which Nicole was holding. “Nothing can touch me when I’m with you.”   
For a moment, Nicole thought she was going to cry and directed her eyes toward the ceiling, trying her best to keep the tears she felt rising in her throat at bay.   
“You make me feel safe too. So safe, like I’m not hundreds of miles from home in the middle of nowhere in a town where I don’t know anybody and everybody knows everybody. You make it so easy.”  
They were quiet for a few minutes, Nicole’s long fingers wrapped around Waverly’s, each of their hearts beating fast.   
“What is this?” Waverly asked it so suddenly that Nicole felt her stomach drop for a moment, not knowing how to respond or if what she would say would fuck everything up.  
“Whatever you want it to be.”  
“Cool, I think you can be my girlfriend then,” Waverly said playfully, and Nicole jokingly punched her in the arm.  
“Okay, Earp, that sounds pretty good to me.”  
They sat in the comfortable silence that they so often found themselves in, the kind of silence you can only find when you really understand someone, when you see their heart for what it is. Nicole knew that she saw Waverly’s, bright and fearless, even in the moments she was most afraid. She was the kind of person who would stop to help someone who seemed upset even if her entire world had just turned upside down moments before. The kind of person who knew that kindness was everything in this world, and that even the smallest amount could go farther than you could ever imagine.   
Waverly no longer felt like she was drowning, and she knew that it had been Nicole who pulled her out. She knew that she was safe with the redhead beside her and that no matter what happened, everything would be okay. Even when it felt like all of the stars had been stolen from the sky and there was only darkness left, she knew she could turn and find Nicole, the brightest star of all, and she would be okay. The way her eyes scintillated in the dim lighting as she listened to Waverly talk, the way her lips parted ever so slightly over her teeth when she was about to smile, the way her laugh sometimes caught in her throat when she was embarrassed, how her ears turned red before her cheeks and her hands shook whenever she kissed Waverly. Waverly saw everything about her, and she was perfect. She was everything she needed condensed into one beautiful soul that was more special than she would ever know.  
“You make me feel like I have something to hold onto even when I can barely keep my head above water,” Waverly said softly, trailing her fingers along Nicole’s stomach in small hearts. “Like I’m drowning and just when I want to give up I catch a glimpse of your face, all blurred through the surface of the water, and I know I’ll have somebody there to catch me when I feel like I’m going to fall.”   
“I’m so glad you feel like that,” Nicole whispered, tears pooling in her eyes briefly before she blinked them away. “I will always be here to catch you. Always, no matter where I am or what I’m doing, I would drop everything to make sure you never hit the ground again.”  
“Do you think Wynonna’s dead?”   
Waverly’s eyes were barely visible in the dark now that the sun had fully gone down, the light that they gave off sparkling like the fireflies Nicole adored.   
“I don’t think so baby, no.” Nicole shook her head and even though she had had the same thought only hours before, she believed what she was saying. “I think if she was dead we would know by now. She probably got herself in trouble and is in a police station somewhere waiting for your mom to come pick her up. Try not to think like that. She’s going to be okay, we’re going to be okay.”   
Waverly shuddered and wiped a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand, rolling away from Nicole so that her back was pressed against her stomach.  
Nicole wrapped her arm around Waverly;s waist and moved closer to the other girl, feeling her inhale and exhale as her stomach shifted up and down.   
Just when she was about to fall asleep, Waverly heard the front door swing open and bolted upright. She shot up and her feet were on the floor before Nicole could even rub the sleep out of her eyes.  
“Wynonna??”


	8. The Devil's in the Details

Waverly was out of the room faster than Nicole could sit up and swing her legs over the edge of the bed. Nicole followed, praying to a god she didn’t believe in that it really was Wynonna who had just clambered through the front door of the house.  
“You fucking asshole,” Waverly called, her voice rising in pitch the way it did when she was close to tears. “I thought you were dead.”  
Nicole felt her heartbeat begin to drop and the rocks that had been sitting in her stomach for hours dissolve. Wynonna was okay, which meant Waverly was going to be okay.   
“I’m sorry, monkey. I got in a little trouble and I lost my phone at the bar…” Wynonna trailed off and Nicole saw that she looked embarrassed, ashamed.   
“What do you mean trouble?” Waverly’s forehead creased as she frowned at her older sister, her foot tapping on the ground impatiently.   
“Can we talk about it later? I’m really tired.”   
“Fine, but you should shower first. You look awful.”  
“Thanks sis,” Wynonna said dryly, smiling in Nicole’s direction and making her way noisily up the stairs.   
Waverly looked at Nicole like she was ready to collapse from exhaustion and Nicole got the hint; she had overstayed her welcome. Not that it wasn’t warranted, but they both needed some alone time.   
“I should go home, my mom will be mad that I was out for so long,” Nicole said awkwardly, fidgeting with her hair, twirling a strand around her middle finger and chewing on the skin of her lip.  
“Yeah, okay. Thank you for everything. I’ll call you?”   
Nicole nodded and kissed Waverly softly on the lips, their first goodbye kiss. For a moment she had almost forgotten that Waverly was now officially her girlfriend, her real life get to kiss her all the time girlfriend. She couldn’t help but smile at the thought as the front door closed behind her and she made her way to her grandmother’s house.  
To her surprise, her mother was nowhere to be found and the house was eerily quiet, like all the sound had been stolen from the air, leaving behind nothing but the faint sound of Nicole’s beating heart, her short, quiet breaths.   
“Mom?”   
Nicole lingered in front of her mother’s bedroom door and when there was no answer, she turned the doorknob slowly, pushing open the creaking door. The room was empty, the bed unmade like someone had left in a hurry, like someone had just been sleeping in it moment’s before. Like if she touched the sheets, they would still be warm.   
“Mom?” Nicole repeated, leaving the door open and walking faster now towards her grandmother’s room.   
Nicole was almost surprised to see her mother standing over her own mother’s bed, holding a thermometer and a glass of water.   
“Oh thank god,” her mother breathed, her voice so low that Nicole could barely hear her. Her grandmother was asleep, snoring unevenly, quietly. “I was just about to call you, you’ve been gone for too long.”   
Her mother looked at her pointedly, walked away from her grandmother’s bedside, and closed the door gently behind her.   
“I’m sorry, Waverly had a family emergency and I completely lost track of time. It won’t happen again.”  
“It’s fine,” her mother replied distractedly, her voice distant. “Your grandmother isn’t doing well.”  
She said it as if it were something innately casual, as if she said it all the time. Nicole knew it was serious, because her mother’s aloof attitude and strained frown told her everything she needed to know. Her grandmother was dying.   
And then a thought struck her that she knew was selfish but that scared her anyways; if her grandmother died, they would go back to the city, and she would probably never see Waverly again. Her only tie to Purgatory would be severed, and she would have no reason to stay, no reason except for the beautiful girl who lived next door and had thoroughly buried herself inside her head.   
“Is she going to die?”  
She knew it was insensitive, to ask such a weighty question in such a light way, but she didn’t know what else to say. All she could really think about was losing Waverly.   
“I don’t know, Nicole.” Her mother looked exhausted, the purple shadows that were brushed under her eyes so prominent it was like someone had painted them on. “She’s getting worse, but we’re going to the doctor’s tomorrow morning. We’ll know more then.”  
Nicole nodded even though her mother’s words sounded miles away, thousands of feet underwater. She couldn’t shake the idea of leaving behind the best person she’d ever met.   
Sure, they would keep in touch, but it wouldn’t be the same, and she couldn’t protect Waverly from her life if she was a thousand miles away.   
Walking quietly to her room, shoes making contact with the hardwood floors with the smallest thump, she wiped the tear that had been threatening to fall out of the corner of her eye.  
As she pulled her comforter closer to her chest, Nicole realized that she hadn’t been alone in a while, the longest since she’d arrived in Purgatory. Her time spent with Waverly allowed her to forget all the things that normally clouded her mind; when she was with the other girl everything seemed to dissipate. She didn’t have to think about how much she wished her mother cared even the tiniest morsel more, or how often she considered breaking into her grandmother’s practically untouched liquor cabinet, or how scared she was that everything with Waverly was fake and she was going to wake up without it. She had so much that scared her, and it was nice to be away from it for a while.  
But now she had something else added on top of everything, and it made all her other fears and doubts seem miniscule, almost stupid. She felt like an idiot for not considering it sooner, that she would eventually return home and leave behind the little life she had built in Purgatory. The scene was running through her mind as fast as the wind that whipped her hair against her face when she drove with Waverly for the first time. She suddenly felt like a house of cards, so fragile that the slightest breath might take her down and scatter her in pieces on the floor.   
Nicole considered calling Waverly and telling her about how scared she really was, but she realized they hadn’t even gone an hour without talking yet and doing so would be clingy and a little codependent. She needed to remember that she could shoulder her own burdens, that she wouldn’t always have Waverly to protect her.   
She hadn’t realized that the tears she had been holding back had escaped and were running smoothly down her cheeks. She swiped at them furiously and paused with her hand mid air when a horrible thought came to her. Just a shot or two of the gin she knew her grandmother kept in the basement would make her feel so much better, would ease her concerns for the time being. She knew it was a thought she should ignore, cast out of her mind along with all the other things she wished she could forget, but it taunted her like a tangible devil on her shoulder. Part of her wanted to brush it off and crush it under her now bare foot, but the other, much louder part of her told her that it would be fine, fun even, to dance with the devil just this once. It’s not like she did much that was that questionable anyway.   
Before she registered just what she was doing she was halfway down the steps to the basement, her phone in her hand acting as her flashlight. It was dim but Nicole remembered from a few weeks ago, when she had come down here to examine the old bike her grandmother told her to put to use, where the liquor cabinet was. The vivid and accurate way that she could picture it made her wonder for a moment if this was what it was like to have a photographic memory.   
By the time she reached the small cabinet, smooth, round knob in hand, her heart was beating faster than it had the first time she ever snuck out of the house. She was terrified for someone to catch her, but even worse was the idea of Waverly finding out what she was doing. She hadn’t even taken a drink yet and she already felt like she was being eaten alive by guilt.  
When she was back in her bed with a bottle in one hand and her head in the other, she realized that what she was doing was made even worse by the fact that her best friend and girlfriend had just spent the entire day worrying about her drunk sister, and she had been there the entire time.  
She felt like a hypocrite. She felt like everyone she had ever hated, she felt like her father who she resented for leaving her alone with her mother. She picked up the bottle and brought it to her lips anyways.


	9. Why Did You Do It?

When Nicole woke up her head felt like it had been run over by several buses several times. The sunlight that crept through her curtains felt like it could burn right through her corneas and bore into her skull, and she groaned as she rolled onto her side to avoid it.  
Worse than any physical pain she felt, she was ashamed of the hangover she now felt and its implications, ashamed of the bottle that rested at the foot of her bed, hidden under a pile of blankets. Even more so, she was ashamed that she had felt better the moment the alcohol hit her tongue, felt like she could fly as soon as she felt the burning sensation slither down her throat to rest in her stomach.  
It was never easy for Nicole to admit when she was wrong, but it was even harder for her to stop doing something that she knew was bad for her but that felt good despite the tangible truth. She already wanted another drink, and that scared her more than Waverly finding out, more than having to leave Purgatory and Waverly behind.   
Along with a hangover from hell, she had woken up to a slew of texts from Waverly.   
hey, sorry for yesterday  
wynonna is fine, she just got into some trouble and didn’t want to drive home drunk  
looks like she actually cared about that one for once  
rosita’s having a few friends over and she said i can bring you, do you want to come?  
sorry for texting you so much, i missed you and i keep forgetting things  
oh, and thanks again for yesterday, you’re a really great support and you mean a lot to me <3  
Groaning under her breath, the light of her phone still too bright for Nicole’s liking, she typed out a response, even her fingers feeling sore.   
no need to apologize, i’ll always be here, and yeah, i’ll come with you. you don’t have to thank me, i want to be there for you xxx  
Sliding her phone under her pillow, she rolled onto her stomach and closed her eyes, falling asleep faster than she had in years.   
Waverly wanted to scream at Wynonna and force her to feel the same pain and fear she had felt while she was gone, but the look in her eyes made her question everything she thought she wanted to say. She didn’t want to be the one to add even a sprinkle more pain to the tragic sorrow that glazed her sister’s eyes.   
“What happened? Why weren’t you answering your phone?”  
Waverly’s eyes were glued to her Wynonna but the older girl’s were planted on the worn tile of the kitchen floor. She tapped her foot like she was impatient and had somewhere to be, but Waverly knew that it was her nervous tick.   
“I left Mercedes’s but when I was halfway home I realized I couldn’t see anything in front of me and that if I didn’t pull over I was going to kill someone or myself, so I pulled over and passed out on the side of the road. I guess I left my car on because when I woke up the battery was dead and so was my phone so I had to walk I don’t even know how many miles to find a gas station and beg them to help me jump start my car. Normally I would’ve been able to do it myself but I was still a little drunk and freaked out because I woke up in the middle of nowhere and didn’t remember how I got there.”  
Wynonna inhaled sharply like she had been holding her breath the entire time she was speaking and looked at Waverly in a way that told her she was truly exhausted.   
“You did the right thing,” Waverly said quietly. She didn’t want to praise her sister for anything she did while blackout drunk, but she was proud of her and relieved that she hadn’t died trying to drive home. “Next time call me and I can come get you.”  
Wynonna smiled and Waverly was surprised to see her eyes fill with tears.  
“You’re too good to me, Waves. I’m sorry I’m such a shit big sister. You shouldn’t have to worry about me or take care of me, it should be the other way around.” She bit her bottom lip with her front teeth and looked back down to the ground.   
“Wynonna, stop. Please stop. You basically raised me, I probably wouldn’t be alive if you hadn’t made sure I ate all those nights or took me to the doctor when I was sick or hurt. I know you’re going through a lot and I know that I can’t make it better, but I will always be here for you. No judgement, no resentment. I love you and I want to be able to help you the way you helped me. Got it?”  
By now tears were streaming silently down Wynonna’s face and she didn’t bother to wipe them away, even when they reached the corners of her mouth and dripped down her chin.   
“I love you, Waverly.”  
“I love you more, Wynonna. Now come on, I think we’re due for some waffles.” She laughed and grabbed her sister’s hand, pulling her in the direction of the kitchen table. “Oh, and Nicole and I are dating now,” she said quickly, walking briskly away from her sister and towards the cabinet where the waffle iron was stored.   
“WHAT? AND YOU DIDN’T LEAD WITH THIS???” Wynonna grabbed at Waverly’s sides and scrunched her fingers against the fabric of her shirt, kissing her on the head and smiling. Waverly couldn’t help but laugh.  
“Shhhh, it’s not that big of a deal,” Waverly giggled, turning her back to her sister and beginning to sift flour into a ceramic bowl.  
“That’s why you’re blushing, right?”  
“Shut up.”  
In retrospect, Nicole probably could’ve used some waffles too, but admitting that would mean admitting to Waverly that she had drank half a bottle of gin alone in her room for no reason except that she was sad. She was ashamed that she even let the thought cross her mind, let alone that she followed through with it.   
When she finally woke up for good, she tucked the half empty bottle under her pillow and made her bed in a makeshift way that was very much unlike her usual tight corners, no wrinkles, perfectly made bed that she prided herself on. She couldn’t stop thinking about Waverly and how guilty she felt for keeping this from her but how she would feel even guiltier if she told the girl and added to the sky high pile of things she already had to worry about.   
Once she was in the kitchen, forcing down a bowl of cereal that she knew would make her feel better but right now felt like swallowing a blend of rocks and glass, her phone began buzzing, the vibrations causing it to slide off the table and onto the floor.  
“Fuck,” she cursed under her breath, letting go of her spoon and bending down to grab that still ringing cellphone. “Hello?” She answered without checking the caller ID, too preoccupied with the uncomfortable hangover feeling in her stomach.   
“Cole, hi baby,” Waverly said brightly, so enthusiastically that it made Nicole squeeze her eyes shut and pull the phone away from her ear momentarily.”   
“Good morning sunshine,” she said cheerfully, mustering as much energy as she could to mask the fact that even just hearing her girlfriend’s voice made her want to cry. “How are you? How’s Wynonna?”  
“I’m good, she’s good, we just finished eating waffles. I have a few left over if you want to swing by and grab one.”  
Nicole looked down at the half finished bowl of soggy cornflakes in front of her and swallowed hard, her mouth watering at the idea of one of Waverly’s waffles, especially right now. Realizing that there was no way she could face Waverly right now without breaking down and telling her what she had done, she frowned and cleared her throat.  
“I would love to, but I have to help my mom run some errands for Grandma Maggie. What time tonight is Rosita’s thing?” She wanted to change the subject as fast as possible so Waverly wouldn’t be able to tell that she was lying through her teeth.   
“She said we can show up around 8, I’m thinking we get there on time instead of later so we can go out and maybe grab ice cream after. Sounds good?”  
“Sounds perfect,” Nicole grimaced, feeling the cereal she had forced down starting to make its way back up her throat. “I have to go, my mom is calling me,” she said hurriedly, hanging up before she even heard Waverly’s goodbye.   
Running to the downstairs bathroom, Nicole barely made it in time to bend over the toilet bowl and get sick, gagging at the taste of the alcohol laced with her vomit. She felt better when she was done, but she really regretted saying no to that waffle.   
Nicole slept for most of the day and was still exhausted when she finally got out of bed to get ready for whatever they were going to do with Rosita. She half-heartedly applied a thin coat of mascara to her eyelashes and forced her feet into a pair of sneakers that were half a size too small, sitting down on her bed when she was done.  
She had a horrible thought in her head, one that made her feel even worse than she felt about last night and one that felt even more irresistible. It wouldn’t hurt to have a small drink before she left, it wouldn’t hurt anyone. At least, it wouldn’t hurt anyone if nobody knew it had happened.   
Feeling incredibly guilty, Nicole slid her hand underneath her pillow and closed her fingers around the neck of the cold glass bottle. The second her gingers made contact, she knew she was making the right decision.   
She decided that she didn’t need to bother with a shot glass or any of that nonsense and got straight to the point, bringing the bottle to her lips and swallowing. The heat of the alcohol making its way into her stomach made her feel more alert than she had all day, and she took several more long sips before placing the bottle back inside her pillowcase. She went to the bathroom and gargled with mouthwash, examining herself in the small mirror that hung over the sink.   
Her eyes were bloodshot and sunken in, like she hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep, which she knew she hadn’t, so she wasn’t very surprised. Other than that she thought that she looked fine, specifically that she didn’t look like she had been drinking. Sure, her eyes were a little glassy and she felt giggly and stupid, but she was happy, and that’s all that mattered.  
When Waverly pulled up in front of the house, Nicole stumbled on the last step coming down from the front door, falling forward for a few moments before catching herself and straightening her back. She laughed it off and to her relief, Waverly laughed too. So far, so good.   
“So what exactly are we doing with Rosita?” Nicole asked, her voice light, working hard to make sure her words remained crisp and clear. She couldn’t risk Waverly finding out that she was a little drunk. “It’s not a party again, is it?”  
“No,” Waverly laughed, resting a hand on Nicole’s thigh but keeping her eyes on the road. “She said it’s just gonna be us and a few friends, probably Jeremy and Champ, maybe Mercedes’s younger sister. Game night and a movie, and maybe a little weed,” she laughed, taking her hands off Nicole’s thigh and the steering wheel for a moment to make air quotes around the last sentence.   
“Sounds good,” Nicole laughed too, looking out the window and watching the trees and houses blur together into one smudged watercolor whose artist had used a little too much water. Her eyes felt heavy, like she could fall asleep right then and there, sitting up.  
“Are you okay?” Waverly turned to look at the girl in the passenger seat.  
Nicole shot up, straightening her posture and rubbing her eyes a little.   
“Yeah, I’m fine!” she said, maybe a little too enthusiastically because Waverly’s forehead creased with concern and doubt. “I’m okay, baby, promise.”  
The second she said the word she felt immensely guilty, like she had just lied straight to her girlfriend’s face even though it wasn’t really a lie. She was drunk, yes, but she was okay. In fact, she felt much more than okay, and was glad she had decided to drink a little before they left.  
The nerves that usually accompanied her when she was going to hang out with Rosita were nowhere to be found, and the numbness in her fingertips felt good, like she had fireworks shooting out of her hands, her eyes, even her mouth. She felt truly alive, which she only ever felt when she was kissing Waverly or falling asleep with her in her arms. She felt good.   
“Okay, just checking.” Waverly smiled and squeezed Nicole’s thigh, making the sparks Nicole felt shoot up into her stomach and chest. “We’re here,” she said suddenly, pulling to the side of a curb and putting the car in park. “Looks like Jeremy is here too, that’s his car.”   
Nicole smiled at her girlfriend and opened the passenger side door, stepping onto the curb and almost losing her balance. Luckily, Waverly was bent over towards the ground on the other side of the car- she had dropped her keys- and didn’t notice Nicole’s slight slip.   
Inside, they followed Rosita into her basement. There were board games like Sorry and Trouble set up, along with a pink glass bong that Nicole could tell had already been used, judging by the smell and the smoke that hung above them in the air.  
Waverly helped herself to a bong rip and offered one to Nicole, who declined, knowing that if she smoked too she would definitely throw up and definitely expose her drinking to everyone there, especially Waverly. Waverlyt shrugged and turned back to the bong, lighting it for Rosita and laughing.   
The longer they played board games and the more competitive it got, the more drunk Nicole started to feel. Her vision was beginning to blur and she was miscounting her turns in Monopoly, which she chalked up to being second hand high from the hotbox the rest of her company had created.   
“Jeremy, it’s your turn,” Rosita screamed, laughing and rolling onto her sides. Jeremy had been preoccupied by the fan that spun above them.   
“Sorry, it’s just. Does that normally move that slow?”  
Waverly and Rosita laughed and Nicole joined them, trying to act like she was paying attention and not just completely wasted, given that she was the only one who hadn’t smoked.   
“You’re high,” Waverly said pointedly, pointing to the board and indicating that it was indeed his turn. “Hurry up and go so I can kick all of your asses.”  
They all laughed and Nicole took a sip of her root beer, trying to settle her stomach. When she started feeling a little sick, she stood up and announced that she would be going to the bathroom.   
“I’ll come with you,” Waverly said smiling, “If ANY of you move the pieces I will know and I will destroy you.” She blew them each a kiss and turned to grab Nicole’s hand.   
“It’s not like it would matter, Earp, I’m still winning.”  
Waverly stuck her tongue out at Rosita and dragged Nicole up the steps, which made Nicole feel all the more nauseous and made her realize that she had gotten slightly more drunk than she intended.   
When they were in the bathroom, Waverly turned the light on and faced Nicole.  
“Okay seriously, what’s wrong? You’ve been acting weird all night.”  
Nicole didn’t know what to say, so she spit out the first thing that came to mind.  
“My grandma’s getting worse. What if she dies? I’ll go home to the city and I won’t be able to see you anymore.” To her surprise her eyes began to fill with tears and she swallowed hard, looking up to the ceiling to prevent them from falling.   
“I’m so sorry baby.” Waverly hugged her and Nicole felt her guilt rise tenfold. Waverly was so sweet, so caring, so honest, and here she was lying to her face and doing the one thing she knew she couldn’t handle.   
“It’s okay. I’m just scared of losing her and of losing you. Everything about this feels so right and so good and I don’t want to leave it. I don’t want to leave you.” She looked Waverly in the eyes and felt a tear roll down her face. “I can’t believe I actually want to stay in Purgatory, god. What have you done to me?”   
They both laughed and Waverly wiped the tear away from Nicole’s face.   
“You’re gonna be okay. We’ll be okay. Believe me?”  
Nicole nodded and leaned in to kiss Waverly. Her bottom lip was in between her own for only a second before she pulled away.   
“You taste like alcohol.”  
Nicole felt her stomach drop and stepped away.   
“What? It’s probably just my mouthwash.”  
“No,” Waverly shook her head. “You’re drunk, I can see it in your eyes. They’re all glassy the way Wynonna’s get when she’s been drinking and trying to hide it. You’re drunk.”  
It was Waverly’s turn to tear up and she bit her bottom lip and turned away.   
“Waverly, I’m not, I’m just upset.”  
Nicole felt her stomach churning and thought she might actually throw up.   
“Stop lying to me, I’m not an idiot. When did this start?” There was fire in Waverly’s eyes, fire that Nicole recognized from when she had screamed at her mother to wake up, from when she talked about how scared and angry she was about her older sister. Nicole felt sick knowing that she was the one who had sparked this flame.   
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.   
“No, you’re not.” Waverly’s voice was steel; Nicole could practically feel the ice forming in the small bathroom.  
“Waverly, I am, I really am.” Her eyes welled with tears once more but this time she let them fall freely. “I fucked up, I know, I’m sorry.”  
Waverly didn’t say anything, just angrily swiped at the tears that were coming from her own eyes.   
“When did this start?”  
“Last night.” Nicole was so ashamed she couldn’t even look the smaller girl in the eye and instead made very solid eye contact with the dim overhead light.  
“Why didn’t you call me? You know you can call me.” She sounded heartbroken now, no longer angry but like someone had just told her the worst news she could’ve possibly received.  
“I don’t know, I was upset and scared and I thought I was going to have to leave and I messed up. I’m sorry.”  
“Okay.” Waverly was quiet. “Stay here, I’m going to go tell Rosita that you aren't feeling well and we’re going home.”  
Nicole opened her mouth to protest but Waverly had shut the bathroom door in her face before she had a chance to get out a word. When she appeared again five minutes later she looked less angry and much more like she never wanted to look Nicole in the eyes again.   
“I’m sorry, Waverly.”  
“I know.”  
They drove home in silence, Nicole’s only solace being that she was still sufficiently drunk to the point where she didn’t have to feel the full extent of the situation. All she could think about was finishing the bottle when she got home.


End file.
